tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37051072024-03-14T05:57:22.252-07:00BLUE VOICEPersonal ReflectionsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger410125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-45402471289970030272024-03-03T02:44:00.000-08:002024-03-03T02:44:14.985-08:00Origins: Chewing Gum<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcfzqxM-TjGY9dob8u1CEFBahVqquZMqYRrfmTJJigBmMAdzfHsH5JWl2IkhuCzsfuIXkNqx4qHLCCi9USG4icj1kJF-aN5vOHW_Ema9pDp3dkwZ_v5uqbifgFuY7IFgpVmRwwcPDUzmCnMbbk41_Rmb19TYBNxCFbEOC45wXtlkDJMKyuV8BI/s644/b9f3bf51766d021d3591fe6a00fe0b73.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="644" data-original-width="450" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcfzqxM-TjGY9dob8u1CEFBahVqquZMqYRrfmTJJigBmMAdzfHsH5JWl2IkhuCzsfuIXkNqx4qHLCCi9USG4icj1kJF-aN5vOHW_Ema9pDp3dkwZ_v5uqbifgFuY7IFgpVmRwwcPDUzmCnMbbk41_Rmb19TYBNxCFbEOC45wXtlkDJMKyuV8BI/w280-h400/b9f3bf51766d021d3591fe6a00fe0b73.jpg" width="280" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">ad from the 1930s</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> Every year, for who knows how long, Knox College seniors in Galesburg, Illinois (though apparently only men) would receive a mimeographed note in their campus
mailbox. I got one my senior year of
1967-68. It read:<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <i>“ Mr. Lester
Smiley, Vice-President of the American Chicle Company, will be on the campus
Friday, February 23. He would like to
hold a group meeting for those men interested in a job opportunity with their
company. The interviews will be held on Friday, February 23 in the College
Placement Office. Mr. Smiley is a Knox
College graduate and, as you know, we have placed many Knox graduates with
American Chicle.”</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> I can quote this notice so precisely because I experienced
it as a bit of found poetry, and literally stapled it into the draft of the play
I was writing, “What’s Happening, Baby Jesus?”
When the play was performed that May, freshman Michael Shain came out in
a business suit and recited it, with the cheerful addition: “So come on out and
keep America chewing!” It got one of
the bigger laughs of the show. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge9Lp0fjqjQ0Dgf5AcQHil7Xn7i61dP5K7d9p7yq8rYD_Z4pgpZozX25FO5Zf0KxxKTj0MqgwL5gAV0Y5_13fccuwMO1Dui33RSvih6E8LvjLpt0ViQTImLZfQ_xVcv9e_-nB0VNx-TKX1g7y32XEnuUPhbDxJSQgyRvF-sWvN4Kn3PM3YqPw3/s642/American-Chicle_0001.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="642" data-original-width="472" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge9Lp0fjqjQ0Dgf5AcQHil7Xn7i61dP5K7d9p7yq8rYD_Z4pgpZozX25FO5Zf0KxxKTj0MqgwL5gAV0Y5_13fccuwMO1Dui33RSvih6E8LvjLpt0ViQTImLZfQ_xVcv9e_-nB0VNx-TKX1g7y32XEnuUPhbDxJSQgyRvF-sWvN4Kn3PM3YqPw3/w147-h200/American-Chicle_0001.jpg" width="147" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rockford High yearbook </td></tr></tbody></table>For decades, American Chicle made chewing gum in Rockford,
Illinois, and (at various times) in Newark, Brooklyn, Cleveland, New Orleans,
Portland, Oregon and around the world. They don’t make so much of it anymore (in fact, after being
swallowed up by a succession of bigger companies—even though swallowing is
something you shouldn’t do with chewing gum-- a company by that name no longer
exists.) Chewing gum has apparently dropped out of fashion, at least for
awhile. But for a long time, America kept on chewing.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <b><span style="font-size: large;">“C</span></b>hewing gum” as we know it began in the USA, though humans
everywhere have been chewing stuff without swallowing it for a very long
time. Some Indigenous peoples in South
America (for example) chewed particular
plants for energy and stamina, and/or to get high. Chewing tobacco is another such instance.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> People chewed various leaves, nuts, twigs and gummy
substances for millennia, as breath sweeteners and digestive aids, to stave off
hunger and thirst, and just for the fun of it.
Denizens of the far north chewed whale blubber, and Europeans chewed
animal fats, sometimes in social hours at the end of meals (hence, perhaps, the
expression “chewing the fat” to mean convivial—and trivial—conversation, though
the origins of this phrase are obscure, based on what seem to be barely
educated guesses.) By the nineteenth
century in America, chewing wax was the popular if not entirely satisfactory
favorite.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> But the substances we know as chewing gum had their origins
in the 1850s. For some of us you could
say the story starts with Davy Crockett.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Just about anyone who went to Knox College—or any college--
in the 1960s would have experienced the Davy Crockett craze of the 50s,
centered on TV films starring Fess Parker, shown endlessly on the Disneyland
anthology hour. The last of the three
supposedly biographical tales was about Davy Crockett joining the heroic band
defending the Alamo—150 or so men facing 1500 Mexican soldiers. After holding the Alamo for ten days, Davy
Crockett and his compatriots were all killed in the battle or executed
afterwards. The general of the Mexican
forces, who was named but never seen in the Disney film, was Santa Anna. We knew that name. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNzAlbFLwls8GS-9swKuy5n4tWEkzcIaiG_aPFNB1vPLguQm_PG8mdnugLb1rduiteTxCuGk_XceZY5n5wUWNjxp25s3N996SxPFV_UQ_3i_wZg7j2tcnPo20PpyyKlU9oKzHuj9AR7s5p4vhwN_ZsoVUB5emx20LjjUkkFDkPTBLrNcvgDTMs/s453/320px-Antonio_Lopez_de_Santa_Anna_c1853.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="453" data-original-width="320" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNzAlbFLwls8GS-9swKuy5n4tWEkzcIaiG_aPFNB1vPLguQm_PG8mdnugLb1rduiteTxCuGk_XceZY5n5wUWNjxp25s3N996SxPFV_UQ_3i_wZg7j2tcnPo20PpyyKlU9oKzHuj9AR7s5p4vhwN_ZsoVUB5emx20LjjUkkFDkPTBLrNcvgDTMs/s320/320px-Antonio_Lopez_de_Santa_Anna_c1853.png" width="226" /></a></div> Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was not only the General of the
army ruthlessly intent on putting down a rebellious attempt of Texas to secede
from Mexico—he was also at the time the President of Mexico. In fact he was President of Mexico at least
five times. He was also the General
that soon after the Alamo, was defeated by Sam Houston’s forces, and thereby
lost Texas. Later he was the general
(and president) who provoked and then lost a war with the entire United
States. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Santa Anna’s career was marked by idealism, hypocrisy,
vanity, charm, chicanery, avarice, incompetence and betrayal, and by a
remarkable ability to survive. He was
also in it for the money. His brief
last term as president was a mockery of a monarchy. After he was deposed he went into exile, and ended up for a time
in—of all places-- Staten Island in New York, where he cultivated a partner in
a get-rich-quick scheme.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> There are several versions of this story. In one, he brought
with him about a ton of chicle, the sap of the manikara zapota or sapodilla
tree, an evergreen found in jungles of southern Mexico and Central
America. His American partner (or
employee or go-between-- the exact relationship varies with the telling) was
Thomas Adams, a photographer and inventor.
Santa Anna liked to chew the chicle, so Adams was tasked with finding a
market for it—as the basis for rubber tires attached to buggy wheels. Santa Anna convinced him it was a great
idea.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> No one was
interested. Then Santa Anna decamped,
leaving Adams with a ton of chicle. He
recalled how one of his sons picked up the habit of chewing it from Santa Anna,
and got another son, a traveling salesman, to try selling it as a chewing
substitute for paraffin wax. Probably
unbeknownst to him, the product had been test-marketed for ages by the Aztecs,
who chewed this <i>chictli</i>. But after
a little success, Adams gave it the American mass-production spin by inventing
a machine in 1871 that divided the chicle into strips. He also invented the
first gumballs. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij6h96gp0_V4BMAgeM4RMAD8JvAfP_zV4Y0DTdmjlsiJugI2aC1hjuKKbuKSA8Ofg3DNz7xtf9Q88KVaOWPwkl6p4a-zl1ByZb9UjeceUvZlEAYCp-ruejboo42wQAYRBXqnlWcPLMWQKEV7tr_a39_0kXLh3EGJmTFVQ8Z9QDyH9OItqttuhu/s762/Black_jacks_gum2.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="558" data-original-width="762" height="146" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij6h96gp0_V4BMAgeM4RMAD8JvAfP_zV4Y0DTdmjlsiJugI2aC1hjuKKbuKSA8Ofg3DNz7xtf9Q88KVaOWPwkl6p4a-zl1ByZb9UjeceUvZlEAYCp-ruejboo42wQAYRBXqnlWcPLMWQKEV7tr_a39_0kXLh3EGJmTFVQ8Z9QDyH9OItqttuhu/w200-h146/Black_jacks_gum2.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>An enterprising druggist in Kentucky began adding flavor to
the gum, though the taste was medicinal.
Adams then created a licorice-flavored gum he called Black Jack. It was
the longest surviving brand of chewing gum, still sticking to the bottom of
movie theatre seats almost a century later. Adams sold Black Jack and another
venerable brand, Tutti Frutti, through vending machines in New York. Later he would market Chiclets. <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwGIldg3_CpfjWbMz3LMJo9uSzdwUyWiwNQ9bJNUXJC-qHpYNPNaTMcnRWNXj12YMS_6GRT-MMGYN65wg-vqmDWZXD9CGrEhvj49BCJZje4Qbb8JW532_Qu-9-YLXSszRO-tbpGooTtvFL1zzlWzIuyF9w-fk0eeTk-y6miADKI0EjOzJrfh9l/s310/beemans02.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="163" data-original-width="310" height="105" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwGIldg3_CpfjWbMz3LMJo9uSzdwUyWiwNQ9bJNUXJC-qHpYNPNaTMcnRWNXj12YMS_6GRT-MMGYN65wg-vqmDWZXD9CGrEhvj49BCJZje4Qbb8JW532_Qu-9-YLXSszRO-tbpGooTtvFL1zzlWzIuyF9w-fk0eeTk-y6miADKI0EjOzJrfh9l/w200-h105/beemans02.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>In the late 1880s,
a candy store owner in Cleveland named William J. White, who supposedly
invented chewing gum all over again when he mistakenly ordered a barrel of
Yucatan chicle, added a peppermint taste. Then other brands familiar to my
generation began arriving. Physician
Edward Beeman began processing pepsin for its stomach-soothing properties, and
heeded a suggestion to add it to chewing gum: Beeman’s Pepsin Chewing Gum. It
was still marketed as such in the 1950s and possibly longer.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> In 1890, Adams brought together several existing
manufacturers, including Beeman and White, to form the American Chicle company.
Eventually it would become an international giant. Together with production and
product refinements (the first Adams chewing gum was the consistency of taffy),
chewing gum became a lucrative product. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdo4pGJHGzhANP8LFMyn0_62l6ZjwJfE6yi8xclMyvl-YPan-EGnPGJZMe_ORWdny0tubzX4UvnMVhJdnyN40JWBGIxJpCYOz83Z_B7VP-tOm7M2mFAZFGMm1TJ61zPzmy-c1gPLjlaO8gcWTJZ8wByjtFYlvdqeX0X8EnI_OIVICVPLkjbzKQ/s720/wrigley01.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="720" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdo4pGJHGzhANP8LFMyn0_62l6ZjwJfE6yi8xclMyvl-YPan-EGnPGJZMe_ORWdny0tubzX4UvnMVhJdnyN40JWBGIxJpCYOz83Z_B7VP-tOm7M2mFAZFGMm1TJ61zPzmy-c1gPLjlaO8gcWTJZ8wByjtFYlvdqeX0X8EnI_OIVICVPLkjbzKQ/w200-h200/wrigley01.png" width="200" /></a></div>Helping that popularity along was a former soap salesman
named William Wrigley, Jr., who introduced his Spearmint gum in 1892, followed
by Juicy Fruit in 1893. Wrigley was
also a pioneer in advertising and publicity—perhaps giving rise to the
expression “selling it like soap.” <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Wrigley headquartered his own company in Chicago, which
became enormously prosperous, presenting the city with the Wrigley Building and
the classic ballpark Wrigley Field for his Chicago Cubs baseball team. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNMm7HhycwQj0AuaEltP4Q7lhQYhn4Z7w1luPwSDzcaps1ckHUnRqoDGm7eazaL3HDq7wc3RkpsjS31K5_k24s3Ky7u545xd2O1S0JNgMsgcJ_MP5sH0zxVSQxobxK-udGRi3V96jSoNFqeKb6oHJ2UNEdQRYvs1orLR-qMavEn_s8n9BNCwGO/s846/beech-nut.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="846" data-original-width="598" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNMm7HhycwQj0AuaEltP4Q7lhQYhn4Z7w1luPwSDzcaps1ckHUnRqoDGm7eazaL3HDq7wc3RkpsjS31K5_k24s3Ky7u545xd2O1S0JNgMsgcJ_MP5sH0zxVSQxobxK-udGRi3V96jSoNFqeKb6oHJ2UNEdQRYvs1orLR-qMavEn_s8n9BNCwGO/w226-h320/beech-nut.jpg" width="226" /></a></div>Another company that formed around this time was Beech-Nut,
which started out as a baby food company but soon branched out in some weird
ways, into chewing tobacco, for instance.
Beech-Nut also entered the chewing gum market with their peppermint,
spearmint and Doublemint brands. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirSCS_L_a3TMxfVyNbVImKCf0BcIFdjKrkf2__lEnY6NUZaHYXgdXsdNbxzaMPNFQWYOTLNMo8Pj1Ed6hrD2c-mLG4yi8Yd0z371bCPLHKOIRBkGgI0sYb4qk8mxe3MAP6UGKU62vIqlcymhRzGKAVGxlXnhYvDkTbgkZyNZimdHpSXGntLKlj/s254/wrigley%20wwI.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="254" data-original-width="165" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirSCS_L_a3TMxfVyNbVImKCf0BcIFdjKrkf2__lEnY6NUZaHYXgdXsdNbxzaMPNFQWYOTLNMo8Pj1Ed6hrD2c-mLG4yi8Yd0z371bCPLHKOIRBkGgI0sYb4qk8mxe3MAP6UGKU62vIqlcymhRzGKAVGxlXnhYvDkTbgkZyNZimdHpSXGntLKlj/w260-h400/wrigley%20wwI.jpg" width="260" /></a></div> Like the first manufactured cigarettes and American
chocolate bars, the presence of chewing gum in the rations of American soldiers
during World War I created a larger market when the soldiers returned, in
addition to giving Europe a taste of America. So it was in the 1920s that
chewing gum began to be a defining feature of American life, and began its
spread to Europe and beyond. Even Coca
Cola briefly got into the act with its own gum.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> By my childhood in the 1950s and adolescence in the early
1960s, chewing gum was a somewhat controversial but still ubiquitous part of
the every day. The brands we knew and
chewed included some of the age-old: many early brands failed, but bright
yellow Juicy Fruit packages were everywhere, and Black Jack and Cloves rattled
down from the lobby vending machines at the movies. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK2gD6_587piQQYr5nCtdp3t-sU1q-V0SOMCvkKNc2Vp7rFnxUv_UexL7WZoj_hij-noHK8_UQRP2SNurQrWqPZCYTc3EjqyMVWz_hVQnHSzELVdRn7ALZUMSMtu7Xeb-2HUjOKeRBa8dfmkytf8ezznXZjUbIj8Rm-kodcMXxHt37jCspk2pB/s226/dentyne02.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="226" data-original-width="223" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK2gD6_587piQQYr5nCtdp3t-sU1q-V0SOMCvkKNc2Vp7rFnxUv_UexL7WZoj_hij-noHK8_UQRP2SNurQrWqPZCYTc3EjqyMVWz_hVQnHSzELVdRn7ALZUMSMtu7Xeb-2HUjOKeRBa8dfmkytf8ezznXZjUbIj8Rm-kodcMXxHt37jCspk2pB/s1600/dentyne02.jpg" width="223" /></a></div><br />Chewing gum brands were heavily advertised, including on
television (<i>Double your pleasure, double your fun, with Doublemint,
Doublemint, Doublemint Gum!</i>) Though chewing gum became associated with
rebellious teenagers (teachers generally frowned on it, and institutions hated
the mess) it was mainly marketed to adults.
New additives, it was claimed, helped clean teeth and breath as well as
calm nerves. If a stick of chewing gum stuffed in your mouth seemed too vulgar,
there was cinnamon flavored Dentyne, in a different sized package and divided
in petite pieces, marketed as a dental—and mental--health aid.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> There was chewing gum for everything: Aspergum contained
aspirin, there were nicotine gums; my father regularly chewed tablets of an
antacid gum called Chooz. By the 1970s
there were sugarless gums, marketed as dieting aids. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVlmCsbqd5KqaPpvsLFyDmZwgkX5YNNkCajWbncjQHw0bP4OAccieni_PXP3GW_Gl1MzP6wtNOv26Z4J-soPbbNHSBwKV4zG4fwbeXdzZbIAkYjlIqbynvxzNgYVSE8nAexxhJiW-eFU1xVzV0HWGRJ9zDxzhUc6TYWA_tiX-ZijEmwhhWio-1/s262/baz02.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="193" data-original-width="262" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVlmCsbqd5KqaPpvsLFyDmZwgkX5YNNkCajWbncjQHw0bP4OAccieni_PXP3GW_Gl1MzP6wtNOv26Z4J-soPbbNHSBwKV4zG4fwbeXdzZbIAkYjlIqbynvxzNgYVSE8nAexxhJiW-eFU1xVzV0HWGRJ9zDxzhUc6TYWA_tiX-ZijEmwhhWio-1/s1600/baz02.jpg" width="262" /></a></div>My generation got the gum habit from childhood bubble
gum. It had a separate and later
history, because it took longer to create a gum that produced durable bubbles.
But the techniques were finally perfected, and the Fleer Company began selling
Dubble Bubble in the 1930s, though with sugar shortages it devoted its entire
production to the armed forces in World War II and didn’t resume domestic sales
until 1951. Around then, Topps began
selling Bazooka bubble gum.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> In my childhood we got Dubble Bubble and Bazooka in small,
fat squares, wrapped tightly and individually. Both brands were wrapped on the
inside with paper containing a comic strip or panel. For Bazooka it was the adventures of Bazooka Joe. Dubble Bubble’s hero was called Pud. Both also included fortunes; Dubble added
interesting “facts.” </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWgBQu276Xq9VEBa-CNRyZIdoSTUrVOeEA1uJykIjgj9hp3YtFQTkvzNCgpAwDZjeh7YM70tO-HoBWi4S9ytirkEp7F30WmO13Fl4rMsSQaQgqLH_6lK3zsNLRdQ-KLWrE1SBB2ataswdTe75o3W0T4R5zZikCvwgdrpKn1ycWrAaROhnATj4Z/s382/baseball%20cards%2050s.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="382" data-original-width="276" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWgBQu276Xq9VEBa-CNRyZIdoSTUrVOeEA1uJykIjgj9hp3YtFQTkvzNCgpAwDZjeh7YM70tO-HoBWi4S9ytirkEp7F30WmO13Fl4rMsSQaQgqLH_6lK3zsNLRdQ-KLWrE1SBB2ataswdTe75o3W0T4R5zZikCvwgdrpKn1ycWrAaROhnATj4Z/w144-h200/baseball%20cards%2050s.jpg" width="144" /></a></div>In the 1930s, Fleer also started selling packages of bubble
gum with cardboard photos of major league baseball players. By my 1950s childhood, Topps had joined and
perhaps surpassed them. Those packages
were single thin rectangles of gum slightly smaller than the cards that we all
collected, treasured, traded and played with. It was also our early form of gambling, as you did not know what players you were getting in each package.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> We also got football cards, with
pictures of professional football players (much less popular than baseball players--college and even
high school football teams were better known then.)
Eventually there would be cards of many different kinds: from Davy
Crockett to the Beatles, Star Trek and Star Wars, and yes (I reluctantly admit)
the Brady Bunch. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .25in;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .25in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpgWWSGGHQcwYQawZfNfvn92xVplt7u-azBbhP_I61qkQdzowSRLGsEHoizwAz2qcIyUYzXzKNT53GTvunR9tqVJEaUpYfFvicyQHFVonH5QpFYcUiOHSIoWpQm0VZ_NtEAsacDtRxdxlQLGjckauv4sD-49oSdbePevxdYRp09RFFIjLblteL/s1024/Dick-Clark-Beech-Nut-mcrfb-2021-761x1024.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="761" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpgWWSGGHQcwYQawZfNfvn92xVplt7u-azBbhP_I61qkQdzowSRLGsEHoizwAz2qcIyUYzXzKNT53GTvunR9tqVJEaUpYfFvicyQHFVonH5QpFYcUiOHSIoWpQm0VZ_NtEAsacDtRxdxlQLGjckauv4sD-49oSdbePevxdYRp09RFFIjLblteL/s320/Dick-Clark-Beech-Nut-mcrfb-2021-761x1024.png" width="238" /></a></div>A switch from bubble gum to chewing
gum exclusively was part of the transition from childhood to adolescence, and
the Beech-Nut gums in particular were part of that, if only for sponsoring Dick
Clark’s Saturday night music show starting in 1958, which featured many of the
current stars lip-synching to their latest singles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though this was black and white television, I still remember the
dark green package of spearmint gum he would display.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .25in;"> Chewing gum in a bewildering number
of new tastes continues to be sold around the world. Still, as the 20<sup>th</sup>
century wound down, chewing gum began to lose its cultural flavor. It was less fashionable, a little
déclassé. Beemans got a boost when the
Tom Wolfe book and the 1983 film <i>The Right Stuff </i>revealed it as famed
test pilot Chuck Yeager’s favorite ritual before a dangerous flight. But that didn’t slow the trend downward.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .25in;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho8F5ZTReVfGBnPRYXRQKjA_ZzOgH97vmKlJXYZVeHHm51Ja5qZVN6gQLWrmv_rU3wmiYmPpiekogDORReQkeUVfzqyVOSa5aFS8mL8sspgFK1z5amMRWd-4b_nNRaxRNlQGQkmhPjsuhAIJqmbwaSuKdgXxdrW7b7K3WNF1TCKJ46Jlem29cD/s500/lennon.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho8F5ZTReVfGBnPRYXRQKjA_ZzOgH97vmKlJXYZVeHHm51Ja5qZVN6gQLWrmv_rU3wmiYmPpiekogDORReQkeUVfzqyVOSa5aFS8mL8sspgFK1z5amMRWd-4b_nNRaxRNlQGQkmhPjsuhAIJqmbwaSuKdgXxdrW7b7K3WNF1TCKJ46Jlem29cD/w200-h200/lennon.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br />Still, even some celebrities kept
chewing, if somewhat secretly. A home movie camera caught JFK chewing gum. Perhaps one of the last public gum chewers was John
Lennon, who famously was seen chewing gum while singing “All You Need Is Love”
to an international TV audience. Though there's enough gum around to keep the famous Gum Wall at Pike's Market in Seattle fresh, it's not as fashionable as it used to be. By the
24<sup>th</sup> century, gum is so unknown that when offered a stick of gum by
a libidinous desk sergeant in a 1940s holodeck simulation, Doctor Beverly
Crusher committed the cardinal rookie mistake, and swallowed it.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .25in;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The fortunes of those great chewing
gum companies has followed, along with the disappearance of many classic
brands. American Chicle is gone,
Beech-Nut is back to making just baby food.
Though now a subsidiary of a candy company, only Wrigley remains an
international giant in chewing gum.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .25in;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> But such is the power of nostalgia
for classic chewing gum brands that a wrinkled up package, a decades-dry stick or related item can
fetch tens, hundreds, even thousands of dollars. And of course it’s become a cliché of my generation to bemoan the
bubble gum baseball cards that were thrown away with the other detritus of
childhood. A 1952 Mickey Mantle hauled
in $12.6 million. Chew on that awhile.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .25in;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Gallery</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .25in;"><span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRfU8ikioKrOYCfU7JC5kyuqqrzEEMUa0nqC7q6st1w9ZCRzKtlvI28M77sYbFCFeVsK5_T8hYGoOVviThqGiPrckeCgPFP1iCyIbBz5tVT_USlHUgu6PKQyx-LoEtnU2fAgSaypvJrjp4DPVm-FAWVIJL8PnMOeNZtN6qdl2bz1HNbDVif-LZ/s631/americanchiclecompanybuildingportlandor.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="496" data-original-width="631" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRfU8ikioKrOYCfU7JC5kyuqqrzEEMUa0nqC7q6st1w9ZCRzKtlvI28M77sYbFCFeVsK5_T8hYGoOVviThqGiPrckeCgPFP1iCyIbBz5tVT_USlHUgu6PKQyx-LoEtnU2fAgSaypvJrjp4DPVm-FAWVIJL8PnMOeNZtN6qdl2bz1HNbDVif-LZ/s320/americanchiclecompanybuildingportlandor.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span><br />American Chicle Building in Portland, Oregon.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .25in;"><b><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .25in;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .25in;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .25in;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .25in;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .25in;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .25in;">Thomas Adams (and sons) put their name on several products, and the Adams name was used for others long afterwards. This is one of the brands that didn't last.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZms70T3T2cKQVvM9ACX2zuRoYwt_HgzOSbO-j8aV13-0ANArdGHwEYkOmvOC5NXS4SvTZNMTdff8FRJDiQyvO08cbrYVNRgvpUZV8FJ6rTL064WXN2F0QvHi6wrCwmBYJy6M6pbD5SomO_ZH55TdIs80MeKL5s1Usbkk1cNF4OhCxRbxD9PlS/s1024/adams-california-fruit-chewing-gum-ad-ruth-roland-534c3b-1024.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="692" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZms70T3T2cKQVvM9ACX2zuRoYwt_HgzOSbO-j8aV13-0ANArdGHwEYkOmvOC5NXS4SvTZNMTdff8FRJDiQyvO08cbrYVNRgvpUZV8FJ6rTL064WXN2F0QvHi6wrCwmBYJy6M6pbD5SomO_ZH55TdIs80MeKL5s1Usbkk1cNF4OhCxRbxD9PlS/w270-h400/adams-california-fruit-chewing-gum-ad-ruth-roland-534c3b-1024.jpg" width="270" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Baseball players were known for chewing substances other than chewing gum. Nevertheless, Beech-Nut did a series of endorsement ads with prominent players--none more prominent than Stan the Man. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIU7MO81cjAeXOEIy7KLo6YCBdoDfaJBrCmrQTktvyhGJqgejhzPKnxd-1K3i-1GnfewlYD6CkqNz7ESieUzFi9ANVSJLcUsjwpS8UPuDT4a55k8Hee88tmuSi5GcB-6PZrgxOlj5nGG10iPypDL35-FFLKtQic8BA0Fhd29l_vdkNH3tqBkH_/s1000/share_1498236430-Stan-Musial-Signed-Beech-Nut-Gum-13-x-14-Tin-Sign-PSA-COA-PristineAuction.com.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIU7MO81cjAeXOEIy7KLo6YCBdoDfaJBrCmrQTktvyhGJqgejhzPKnxd-1K3i-1GnfewlYD6CkqNz7ESieUzFi9ANVSJLcUsjwpS8UPuDT4a55k8Hee88tmuSi5GcB-6PZrgxOlj5nGG10iPypDL35-FFLKtQic8BA0Fhd29l_vdkNH3tqBkH_/s320/share_1498236430-Stan-Musial-Signed-Beech-Nut-Gum-13-x-14-Tin-Sign-PSA-COA-PristineAuction.com.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The classic Dubble Bubble...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPGVWgj_ienmqi-RLVIPH8-wiQEyelBPgTI7ThGS_8uflq4O6yeQUicax_aheS9D3tnJDy4sRIsUGWbO_CbgLIuas_GFLanX3x_WJnUZfnwXm-9Icc7IcgjJg9oAIixRJ_5dvI19ow7HRmoXbw1nT3Oi2mJq91H16NJkgrOLW5S5OPm7oaVlcZ/s229/dubble01.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="229" data-original-width="220" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPGVWgj_ienmqi-RLVIPH8-wiQEyelBPgTI7ThGS_8uflq4O6yeQUicax_aheS9D3tnJDy4sRIsUGWbO_CbgLIuas_GFLanX3x_WJnUZfnwXm-9Icc7IcgjJg9oAIixRJ_5dvI19ow7HRmoXbw1nT3Oi2mJq91H16NJkgrOLW5S5OPm7oaVlcZ/s1600/dubble01.jpg" width="220" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">In the effort to give chewing gum legitimacy, especially in the early days, companies made various health claims. Beemans however was sincere--he was a champion of pepsin, and many other companies later used pepsin in their gum, and featured the word prominently in packaging and promotions.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_wDqiIjVK8hG6EhK5QrUJRRPBqvPhvvJJaIpZCXyZdCJc_yAVG4YKKy2UkBrV3jvNN9sPEroTgbebd9OAxjHitUJRWgvoCCpErZ9zujtF9Jy4roU-uZQkYsEv7AKNBcKiCDVJYY8iyuLRG2_y3aTosZV3S6zFKW48SZr0p7n12iZzUvwCZHYI/s1441/Beemans-Ad-1919.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1441" data-original-width="1000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_wDqiIjVK8hG6EhK5QrUJRRPBqvPhvvJJaIpZCXyZdCJc_yAVG4YKKy2UkBrV3jvNN9sPEroTgbebd9OAxjHitUJRWgvoCCpErZ9zujtF9Jy4roU-uZQkYsEv7AKNBcKiCDVJYY8iyuLRG2_y3aTosZV3S6zFKW48SZr0p7n12iZzUvwCZHYI/w278-h400/Beemans-Ad-1919.jpg" width="278" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">When I tried to recall specific baseball cards I actually had in my collecting years, I could remember of course the prominent names, like Mickey Mantle, Roberto Clemente, etc. But the actual card? For some reason the first I recalled was the Gene Baker card with the dark green background. Gene Baker is a forgotten player from the 50s and early 60s, but his last team was the Pittsburgh Pirates, which I followed religiously, especially in the 1957,58, 59 and World Championship 1960 seasons. When he came to the Pirates in the Dale Long trade in 1957, I kept waiting to see him but he rarely played, hobbled by injuries and better players in front of him. He'd been a shortstop, converted to second base in Chicago (sharing the infield with the great Ernie Banks--the two of them were among the first black players in the NL after Jackie Robinson) and a utility infielder in Pittsburgh. He was on the 1960 team, used sparingly to spell Don Hoak at third and pinch-hit. He soon retired but stayed with the Pirates organization, and became the first black manager and coach in organized baseball (in the minors), and if only for part of one game in 1963, the first black manager in the Major Leagues.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJlh7Hu4ASPh1y1S0VU-wg25-NrZK-jJ4Uyk1cF7N7-ywBwkmU47a9zr_ziWEWCZttCqpzduuDdYxghhkk7NuM6e6uxs_0L1_Xd98tpwtIqksWH1BYp6UZtW1jqttmXEGrhsDoYFzl4we_LrclcITp_FTeDtzeYkQiAoTLel4EKhtvYBLc_3iz/s2560/1959%20bcard.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2560" data-original-width="1855" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJlh7Hu4ASPh1y1S0VU-wg25-NrZK-jJ4Uyk1cF7N7-ywBwkmU47a9zr_ziWEWCZttCqpzduuDdYxghhkk7NuM6e6uxs_0L1_Xd98tpwtIqksWH1BYp6UZtW1jqttmXEGrhsDoYFzl4we_LrclcITp_FTeDtzeYkQiAoTLel4EKhtvYBLc_3iz/s320/1959%20bcard.jpg" width="232" /></a></div><br /> </div><br /><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-53357115983445834142024-02-13T01:31:00.000-08:002024-02-13T04:19:52.133-08:00Origins: Valentine's Day<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyIzB5WmEHE7oZYAp2DeV1OXZDHAq9T4P3PwzxWcePwng9xd3_VSGHLP7Z8tgiQHus3SomuYoANAlQhY3qTLASOl9Pw2d_bbU7lf-ViDildUyupbUluxWVBe_tDzJyTA31RFjLDLNalb66jTEg1kdGMvr-SiX9I0Tkp0pgBNbDJq0X-mrGMkJr/s1080/val03%20victorian.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="803" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyIzB5WmEHE7oZYAp2DeV1OXZDHAq9T4P3PwzxWcePwng9xd3_VSGHLP7Z8tgiQHus3SomuYoANAlQhY3qTLASOl9Pw2d_bbU7lf-ViDildUyupbUluxWVBe_tDzJyTA31RFjLDLNalb66jTEg1kdGMvr-SiX9I0Tkp0pgBNbDJq0X-mrGMkJr/w476-h640/val03%20victorian.jpg" width="476" /></a></div><br />As is often true, the ultimate origin of Valentine's Day is unknown, though there are plenty of juicy legends repeated as fact, all disputed by at least some scholars. But the one makes the most sense to me is this: its roots are in the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia, held on the Ides of February (February 15.) <p></p><p> Lupercalia was an early spring fertility festival, ostensibly in honor of a god of agriculture but also of Rome's founders, Romulus and Remus. According to that origin legend, they were twin boys abandoned in a cave and raised by a wolf (Latin and Harry Potter scholars will recognize that "lupa" in Lupercalia means a she-wolf.) The festival traditionally began with a rite at that legendary cave.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin8kKWedmZv-it4hu-e2SAtG1U447w1mDo_Y5gPpz_vMuWLgrXCD_2OLtiN3ZRlQVMTbt1bxfzpp52liWDqnKkbS41GpLu0JURdKbMLELW_ODtOWk9sRVzKkyXZUJYV_DbDiAgl79bEOLFRKYUudc67RFJJ-sJDcoqD59_OM5KjkybfVA5g5dW/s632/val10.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="445" data-original-width="632" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin8kKWedmZv-it4hu-e2SAtG1U447w1mDo_Y5gPpz_vMuWLgrXCD_2OLtiN3ZRlQVMTbt1bxfzpp52liWDqnKkbS41GpLu0JURdKbMLELW_ODtOWk9sRVzKkyXZUJYV_DbDiAgl79bEOLFRKYUudc67RFJJ-sJDcoqD59_OM5KjkybfVA5g5dW/s320/val10.png" width="320" /></a></div>But the rest of Lupercalia was dedicated to different sorts of fertility, with naked drunks running through the streets (some suggest the day also honored the god Pan), past married women who hoped they would become pregnant or have an easy delivery if they were touched by the goat's hide strips the men brandished. <p></p><p>Yet another custom--more related to today's holiday-- was a lottery in which unmarried women dropped their names into an urn for unmarried men to randomly extract. The two would become a couple, presumably including sexual favors, either for the course of the festival or (according to other sources) the entire year. This even speedier variation on speed dating often (it is said) resulted in marriage. </p><p>All of this went on for centuries, until the Catholic Church finally predominated. In the fifth century, the Pope banned Lupercalia, and replaced it with St. Valentine's Day. Some sources claim that the choice of St. Valentine was simply because he was officially martyred on that date. Maybe. But whenever the Church replaced a pagan feast day, or built a church over a pre-Christian sacred site, the replacement is often related to the earlier intent-- especially since Indigenous and other pre-Christian special days were related to natural cycles of the calendar, such as when birds and other animals begin mating in the early spring.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6MqAKbgzfa5rnwnZMGhSyqxfxjESEJucRb1hwPBoT6-skEvcxCAhr2kAhjwRHIqeAkeF067ToydMO1jbmLOGEw6M1W6AlYBgSwTbtP_egY71PemYZwLL_-5Vi4bk5mc2F_XPDEcX-vIxY0EtbYrx4sr0hyphenhyphenfmHvfQSW44NY4rdB1_FHSBi2vQJ/s1219/val12.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1219" data-original-width="717" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6MqAKbgzfa5rnwnZMGhSyqxfxjESEJucRb1hwPBoT6-skEvcxCAhr2kAhjwRHIqeAkeF067ToydMO1jbmLOGEw6M1W6AlYBgSwTbtP_egY71PemYZwLL_-5Vi4bk5mc2F_XPDEcX-vIxY0EtbYrx4sr0hyphenhyphenfmHvfQSW44NY4rdB1_FHSBi2vQJ/s320/val12.jpg" width="188" /></a></div>Besides, there are stories of at least three St. Valentines, all supposedly martyred, and none proven to have existed. But by the Middle Ages the Church had a great cover story to relate Valentine to the Lupercalia, without saying so. According to this legend, it all started when the third century Roman emperor Claudius II banned marriage.<p></p><p>Claudius had risen through the military (the first Emperor to have done so, and the first to be of "barbarian" birth) and thought marriage made soldiers weak and fretful, distracted by wives and children at home. And Claudius was often at war.</p><p> But a Christian prelate in Rome called Valentine continued to secretly marry couples, until he came to the attention of Claudius. During Valentine's imprisonment, he and Claudius had lively discussions, each trying to convert the other to their religion. But only one of them was the emperor, so Valentine was executed.</p><p>Did any of this happen? Outlawing marriage was not entirely unknown in Rome, but the encyclopedia entry that Wikipedia uses doesn't mention Claudius II (also known as Claudius Gothicus) doing so. There is a further addition to the legend that says while he was imprisoned, Valentine had some sort of relationship--perhaps even fell in love with--his jailer's daughter. Before his execution, he left her a note, "from your Valentine." Right--at least a degree of cuteness too far. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjrZxbZ4aXe8z8C6WscsLVxpM3ilER4JhyEZgEDRQDLMzZGa0t_3BrwK-WqxMQkMoJ9N2X2lRkfsQox_Bv3lsReEUW8BzMCAXcRcO1pOaFMiOM58NUnoEaSpmEYrAXwPL0P55qmIlmPbwmZywp8PvedKKXnlRBLS04fLbMh8mjmIkpnJvWWUj7/s581/val06.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="581" data-original-width="370" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjrZxbZ4aXe8z8C6WscsLVxpM3ilER4JhyEZgEDRQDLMzZGa0t_3BrwK-WqxMQkMoJ9N2X2lRkfsQox_Bv3lsReEUW8BzMCAXcRcO1pOaFMiOM58NUnoEaSpmEYrAXwPL0P55qmIlmPbwmZywp8PvedKKXnlRBLS04fLbMh8mjmIkpnJvWWUj7/s320/val06.jpg" width="204" /></a></div>But by the Middle Ages, Valentine was a popular saint across Europe, and St. Valentine's Day became a day for celebrating early love, a sanitized--or at least euphemistic-- version of the Roman holiday. The tradition of the card now called the valentine may have also derived from the age-old traditions of Lupercalia. Denied their lottery, it's said that young Roman men sent handwritten greetings to women they admired on the mid-February date.<p></p><p>But the first documented (and still existing) valentine card was sent by Charles, duke of Orleans in 1415. He sent it to his wife, who happened to be a prisoner in the Tower of London at the time. </p><p> Handmade cards began to bear the image of Cupid (also related to Roman love customs) and to include amorous verses. The printing press made the "mechanical valentine" a thing, and lower postal rates in 19th century England meant they didn't need to be hand-delivered, and could even be sent anonymously. This led to more explicit imagery and racy verses, to the extent that in 19th century Chicago, some 25,000 valentines were deemed too obscene to deliver. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9e_xYnMSK4_BABb4T3CB1RvYCOQsJJh6NFYk_m1yYlgLcZTu9aL9wRlfzYv1JTgt0q0kdWXtYCMdFWsIZgHq8wG4SAmRXNaYKG21neUvNtp8i8q0XOaaCIkmVhz5ZqMqVMiDNlJ_tzKt5FpAtaqdBSP_VLUYktLPDtol9lTzkKDEkB8HvNQnu/s865/val04%20vinegar.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="865" data-original-width="701" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9e_xYnMSK4_BABb4T3CB1RvYCOQsJJh6NFYk_m1yYlgLcZTu9aL9wRlfzYv1JTgt0q0kdWXtYCMdFWsIZgHq8wG4SAmRXNaYKG21neUvNtp8i8q0XOaaCIkmVhz5ZqMqVMiDNlJ_tzKt5FpAtaqdBSP_VLUYktLPDtol9lTzkKDEkB8HvNQnu/s320/val04%20vinegar.jpg" width="259" /></a></div>Among the rude cards of the 19th and early 20th centuries were "vinegar valentines," that expressed insults--doubly so, since it often was the receiver and not the sender who had to pay the postage. Meanwhile, erotic valentines--intended as humorous or maybe not--survive into the 21st century.<p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz-tGfd31BeH8I2vuC_JRQiYLTsbHpfQkUtxLzhdJlCyfO9uuNvFTbWAbSRWjsDRNcXNqFeE-4nq_89UE2yOR-gT9ZtdAA1377H4uNppej1paP3iV9X4gw5_Qjy5q6Nqr0ddu7R8yzRJbf-ISOMGKzFVY3LPq2_UBBpqKPQUzjL7PpMngG_X1b/s1071/val09.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1071" data-original-width="892" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz-tGfd31BeH8I2vuC_JRQiYLTsbHpfQkUtxLzhdJlCyfO9uuNvFTbWAbSRWjsDRNcXNqFeE-4nq_89UE2yOR-gT9ZtdAA1377H4uNppej1paP3iV9X4gw5_Qjy5q6Nqr0ddu7R8yzRJbf-ISOMGKzFVY3LPq2_UBBpqKPQUzjL7PpMngG_X1b/s320/val09.JPG" width="267" /></a></div>The first printed valentines in America were pricey, but when greeting card companies produced less expensive versions, the practice of sending them became almost obligatory, rivaling only Christmas for predominance. Through the 20th century at least, many faced Valentine's Day with anxiety and dread, counting the cards they got from fellow fifth graders, or mourning the first February 14 that their mailbox was bereft. <p></p><p>As for the Xs denoting kisses on valentines and other written notes--which likely makes it the first emoji--they seem to be a remnant from illiterate times when many could sign their name only with an X, and sealed it with a kiss. If present trends continue, those days may not be gone forever. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-89469414828356532142024-02-01T15:31:00.000-08:002024-02-01T15:32:25.365-08:00Origins: The Jungle Gym<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9hsgTIrcwSkJpplJPcGLqKCbmL01FWhRfW0RkTluQKqbE7yPL5RaKA8X8mxOXXbnSQOr61e0Ua7_gY8G1oA5gr4jHZVknZBfzwmkwyuykTxoKS9lQ4Zbn6aQBdqLPGOYjvrmYRTY7YYfRBVjx3ouLRqpclZII84P16mT5rbuiPa-iqf3gXlWa/s300/boys%20jg%20color.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="297" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9hsgTIrcwSkJpplJPcGLqKCbmL01FWhRfW0RkTluQKqbE7yPL5RaKA8X8mxOXXbnSQOr61e0Ua7_gY8G1oA5gr4jHZVknZBfzwmkwyuykTxoKS9lQ4Zbn6aQBdqLPGOYjvrmYRTY7YYfRBVjx3ouLRqpclZII84P16mT5rbuiPa-iqf3gXlWa/w396-h400/boys%20jg%20color.jpg" width="396" /></a></div> The Jungle Gym turned 100 years old last year, sort of. The patent filed by Sebastian Hinton was approved in 1923, starting off its worldwide replications. However, Sebastian Hinton was not really an inventor -- he was a patent attorney in Illinois, so he wrote a good patent.<p></p><p> The idea and the basic structure was dreamed up and built many years before by his father, Charles Hinton, who <i>was</i> an inventor (he created the first baseball pitching machine. Unfortunately, it was powered by gunpowder.) Charles Hinton also wrote scientific romances in the era of H.G. Wells' classics, but chiefly he was a mathematician. And so the purpose of his jungle gym was to...teach his children math.</p><p>Charles Hinton came from a radical but highly educated family in the UK. His mathematical interest was what he called the fourth dimension, within which exist the three dimensions we know. Or something like that. (It wasn't the Wells' version of the fourth dimension, which was time.) In the late 19th century, when he proposed his ideas (more influential now than then), he came to believe that people couldn't understand his fourth dimension because they really didn't know the mathematics of three dimensions. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO2Tb2QGfPADmSOz3fadZFxwDUm_kL3SqqAsvpCJnD91s1PRG_vKPCsZfnINP6JUiJqQXtlVJxjerA_R_y2TqwYvCEv3xMv9iQ7uqN2CHZpq25CUzrnIpChzrHRB-ZSuQuU4cF1q9enryKiZyL_bT3pE-t5GSqTOT2YKDtMoZIL0NYQqs7UK9w/s720/boys%20hinton.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="565" data-original-width="720" height="157" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO2Tb2QGfPADmSOz3fadZFxwDUm_kL3SqqAsvpCJnD91s1PRG_vKPCsZfnINP6JUiJqQXtlVJxjerA_R_y2TqwYvCEv3xMv9iQ7uqN2CHZpq25CUzrnIpChzrHRB-ZSuQuU4cF1q9enryKiZyL_bT3pE-t5GSqTOT2YKDtMoZIL0NYQqs7UK9w/w200-h157/boys%20hinton.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>So to teach his children how three-dimensional math works, he built a backyard structure to illustrate it, and encouraged his kids to identify the junctures of the x, y and z axes by climbing to each point and calling it out. They climbed all right, but they ignored the math lesson.<p></p><p>Charles Hinton built his structure out of bamboo, since he was in Japan at the time. Later he moved to the US, taught at Princeton (where he invented the pitching machine), and worked at the US Naval Observatory and the Patent Office, though he never bothered to patent his "climbing frame."</p><p>Years later his son Sebastian suddenly remembered it, and described it to an educator at the progressive school system in the Chicago suburb of Winnetka, who encouraged him to build a prototype. It was tweaked, and eventually kids in Winnetka were climbing on the first jungle gyms (one of which still exists, also made of wood) and Hinton filed his patent. He didn't personally profit by it or see its success, for this is also the centennial of his death.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCfxTGbf8a8TVy8Aa3eG2fYPP0YbivS4D61ulbJdHf5A0KE5fYk9Ugs0ueAoVI7KuGDGTZ5L3nAG9YWOMH_EllXyjX1gCYX_PRcWTuqyEm5zAF4e7_76w5tykBpGlAzFztj6kYrArj5avCjvz3c6eGvdBWO6-b2lGqTffiUOHNigOUvQvm-Cx4/s711/boys%20vintage%20jg.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="711" data-original-width="564" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCfxTGbf8a8TVy8Aa3eG2fYPP0YbivS4D61ulbJdHf5A0KE5fYk9Ugs0ueAoVI7KuGDGTZ5L3nAG9YWOMH_EllXyjX1gCYX_PRcWTuqyEm5zAF4e7_76w5tykBpGlAzFztj6kYrArj5avCjvz3c6eGvdBWO6-b2lGqTffiUOHNigOUvQvm-Cx4/s320/boys%20vintage%20jg.jpg" width="254" /></a></div>The patent referred to the structure as a version of tree branches upon which "monkeys" climb. Experts say it's really ape species that do this kind of climbing, but kids are often called monkeys. and the name stuck for one part of the jungle gym: the monkey bars. The jungle gym has been varied over the years, getting more elaborate and more safety- (and lawsuit-) conscious. But something like the original still features in many if not most playgrounds and a lot of backyards.<p></p><p>There have been a few notices in the media of this centennial, notably the NPR <i>All Things Considered</i> <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/10/24/1208312694/a-beloved-piece-of-playground-equipment-the-jungle-gym-turns-100-years-old">segment</a> by Matt Ozug. But no one answered the question that I had (nor did they ask it): The name "Jungle Gym" seems like an obvious pun on "Jungle Jim," of comic strip, film, radio and TV fame. But is it?</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4586HGeBmjhRd8ZtQDG27f0kN2D4iuKlHFPYnjGFzlTlCJtLoGktaDUa6dgMYPaysyA6Hg4gnbTK7uaPVrtEmfQICjKg2g-y9FOwj8Uh05xUuZ8hqik0IH-hsU5ChnKRrHv2PMDgd_wyG9RHK1LQKX4BiLOjtcBWGEgCIzeTOnCCQ0tW5Hz_r/s1579/boys%20jj%20color.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1579" data-original-width="1069" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4586HGeBmjhRd8ZtQDG27f0kN2D4iuKlHFPYnjGFzlTlCJtLoGktaDUa6dgMYPaysyA6Hg4gnbTK7uaPVrtEmfQICjKg2g-y9FOwj8Uh05xUuZ8hqik0IH-hsU5ChnKRrHv2PMDgd_wyG9RHK1LQKX4BiLOjtcBWGEgCIzeTOnCCQ0tW5Hz_r/s320/boys%20jj%20color.jpg" width="217" /></a></div>Nope. Sebastian Hinton patented what he called the "junglegym" in 1923. Jungle Jim didn't appear in the newspaper comics pages until 1934. Jungle Jim was created by comics artist Alex Raymond (with writer Don Moore) as a lead-in to Raymond's other famous hero, Flash Gordon--they both appeared for the first time on the same day. The other thing that seems obvious about Jungle Jim is true: he was created to compete with the wildly popular Tarzan, who started out in a series of novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs, then swung into the movies (the first Tarzan in silent pictures was Elmo Lincoln, of Knox College) before dominating the funny papers starting in 1931. <p></p><p>So is it the other way around? Jungle Jim comes from the Jungle Gym? The official story is that Jungle Jim Bradley was named after Alex Raymond's brother Jim. But did the brothers ever play on a jungle gym as boys? I await the definitive Alex Raymond biography to answer that question.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-4394201021427006292024-01-18T01:33:00.000-08:002024-02-01T15:39:09.996-08:00New Year's Guides<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwl8qcD3GJ7XPz_vVWM-Kl7BLhzkCuN8k_aWnRmyfuUuo0Yrd5OLmQOUV98BUffHDwXAIIi5kx6MPQolJlGlqMwaetaKS-rLO33E4f9ZIZ7XVQFBN28tA1L9Q1cZ9bgpDJfdlE4xyB35RvHqex749A12_U7EMQU9cIuykkL5YRGScoSuGQH98YNA/s740/winter%20woods04.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="493" data-original-width="740" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwl8qcD3GJ7XPz_vVWM-Kl7BLhzkCuN8k_aWnRmyfuUuo0Yrd5OLmQOUV98BUffHDwXAIIi5kx6MPQolJlGlqMwaetaKS-rLO33E4f9ZIZ7XVQFBN28tA1L9Q1cZ9bgpDJfdlE4xyB35RvHqex749A12_U7EMQU9cIuykkL5YRGScoSuGQH98YNA/w640-h426/winter%20woods04.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />The new year (which began really as the winter solstice passed in December) is traditionally a time for looking back and looking ahead but at a deeper level. New Year's resolutions are the most familiar expression now, and though they tend to be superficial and repetitive (hence the boom in weight loss and exercise products this month), they at least suggest this impulse to reevaluate and resolve. <p></p><p>Another way to look at it is to pause in the journey to reflect on it, and perhaps make more conscious use of our commitments and our guides. I recently saw what to me was an unusual interpretation of the Buddhist (also Hindu) concept of dharma, as "a particular purpose and work in the world that is unique to us and of benefit to others." For some of us, that purpose is defined and defining. For most of us, it is complex, multiple, ambiguous, hard to define even to ourselves. But we can define some of our guides on the journey, and hope the rest takes care of itself.</p><p>Three of my guides are represented here by concepts from other cultures, in other languages. The fourth is an American way. Though they are personal values, they govern my relationship with others: other people, other beings, others of any description I share this planet and this universe with, in my time. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><b> <i>Ahimsa</i> </b>is a Sanskrit word which literally means
non-harming, the most basic Buddhist precept. Poet Gary Snyder, who studied Buddhism for many years, defines
the concept as <i>“do the least possible harm.” </i>"Least possible" refers to contexts as well as physical limitations.<i> </i>
So it is less restrictive than total non-violence, but it is broader in
application. It means do the least
possible harm to everything—not just humans but animals, plants and even
rocks. It turns out to be an ecological
as well as a moral principle. In life it means a change in assumptions—that is,
think first before making a harmful change, not exactly second nature to
western civilization. Personally it means
being mindful, respecting the other, and sincerely evaluating whether causing
harm is necessary. This is a key to the
sacred attitude towards eating and other aspects of ordinary life that
nevertheless have profound meaning.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><b> <i>Hozho</i> </b>is a concept from Navajo culture, part of the
Beauty Way. A Navajo character in a
Tony Hillerman novel explains it with an example: In times of drought the Hopi
and some other cultures will pray for rain. But the Navajo do something else, based on a different approach to life. “The Navajo has the proper ceremony done to restore himself to harmony
with the drought…. The system is designed to recognize what’s beyond human
power to change, then to change the human’s attitude to be content with the
inevitable.” </p><p class="MsoNormal">This does not eliminate trying to right wrongs, address problems,
or change what needs to be changed. But
where it applies, this concept is not only a profound act of humility, but a
necessary human response of adjustment to reality. It’s something that other animals do instinctively—they find ways
to cope with drought, for example. They adapt to the environment. Instead of being angry or frightened, or
obsessing on things as unjust and taking them personally, people accept the
conditions and work within them to make life better—by conserving water, for
instance. Being in harmony is not easy. The Navajo ceremonies take days. But as a general principle, it only makes sense.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The third concept is Italian, and so part of my own Italian
American culture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b><i>Sprezzatura</i>
</b>can be defined in various ways, but it can come down to making a personal style
part of life, an elegance that is natural and appears effortless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tony Bennett applied it to music, but
outwardly it can most often be seen in modes of dress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are places where such expression is
noticed and valued, but more places where it isn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that doesn’t matter so much, because <i>sprezzatura</i> is an
attitude, and expression (playfulness, authenticity) for its own sake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Or to quote another Italian saying: <i>Niente senza gioia</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nothing without joy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">The fourth concept I regard as the basis for all community. It is expressed in the common phrase: <i><b>"You'd do the same for me."</b></i> It expresses not only a commitment but a confidence that this commitment is shared. It is a phrase of the people, by the people and for the people. Which brings us (in a way) back full circle to <i>ahimsa</i>. </span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-66364357676279170952024-01-05T01:52:00.000-08:002024-01-05T01:52:21.941-08:00R.I.P. 2023<p> Honoring some of the prominent people who died in the past year as I usually do seems a little hollow this time, for my thoughts are heavy with people prominent in my life who passed away in 2023, even if they are not so famous. They were all good people, and they live in my memory. So I can't go on to more generally recognizable names without at least mentioning them. </p><p> I've <a href="http://dreamingup.blogspot.com/2023/07/rip-carl-t-severini-1932-2023.html">written previously</a> about my uncle, Carl Severini. I've <a href="http://dreamingup.blogspot.com/2023/09/waiting-by-sea.html">mentioned</a> my friend since high school, Joyce Davis (my first prom date, and first teenage kiss.) Towards the end of the year there were more: Bernadette Cheyne and Charlie Meyers, friends from Humboldt State drama department (I wrote about them<a href="http://stagematters.blogspot.com/2023/12/rip-2023-north-coast-donald-charlie-and.html"> here</a>); and most recently, Janet Morrison, who I knew first at Carnegie Mellon drama and as Margaret's close friend, and who we saw a few times more recently. The world is a lesser place without them.</p><p>But here's at least a curtain call for people who were part of many lives, some of whom will continue to live in films, books and recordings, and some of whom will remained anchored to a particular time in our memories.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZebHLGUJB501pBO2vsTHIUDKRm3iglOb9z7F8YehXkN_NP-BsMmMbRQIXq4lHr-ossEQuqfpoiO9kOTOKeVrElpXocTWiRf04nWCerTtgJYjG8soy3TqczmvLYCjNdgQaunfu5Z7eaTqVU2lKZAX5Ox1vHn9CTawhaW9Q_PxUcBxGzLZYelXW/s1600/harryb02.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZebHLGUJB501pBO2vsTHIUDKRm3iglOb9z7F8YehXkN_NP-BsMmMbRQIXq4lHr-ossEQuqfpoiO9kOTOKeVrElpXocTWiRf04nWCerTtgJYjG8soy3TqczmvLYCjNdgQaunfu5Z7eaTqVU2lKZAX5Ox1vHn9CTawhaW9Q_PxUcBxGzLZYelXW/s320/harryb02.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>So a last hurrah to <b>Harry Belafonte</b>, as admirable a man as he was talented. After stardom with The Band, <b>Robbie Robertson</b> explored his Native roots and wrote tantalizing film scores. He must have been an interesting guy to know. <b>Michael Gambon</b> was masterful in so many roles, from his early work on <i>The Singing Detective</i> to the great French detective <i>Maigret</i> in a British TV series, to international fame as the second Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films, with lots of wonderful supporting roles as well (I recall expecially his role as Mr. Woodhouse in the 2009 BBC/PBS series of Jane Austen's <i>Emma</i>.) <p></p><p><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwTK5BFmFkNua80Ewp55OaOi5Nr31XBsdn-V-Ks45-GJODkcpDooMlNdpbWvAK9fy9DOXTOudWPz_2XmgE6SyJMX13oWXpPyr2bFq7im9IFxJLIISs7tGBZ2e1D-0QCFGsIyJ5iuiOO0fXSrYJHnL64dVOSxbOTQ_w291bXHk3CgQc0Uw7SrOO/s1600/Glenda2.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1560" data-original-width="1600" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwTK5BFmFkNua80Ewp55OaOi5Nr31XBsdn-V-Ks45-GJODkcpDooMlNdpbWvAK9fy9DOXTOudWPz_2XmgE6SyJMX13oWXpPyr2bFq7im9IFxJLIISs7tGBZ2e1D-0QCFGsIyJ5iuiOO0fXSrYJHnL64dVOSxbOTQ_w291bXHk3CgQc0Uw7SrOO/s320/Glenda2.jpg" width="320" /></a></b></div><b>Glenda Jackson</b> had a superb run as a movie actor, as well as a theatre actor in the UK (the only time I saw her onstage in the US was in a regrettable production of <i>Macbeth</i>.) The British actor <b>Tom Wilkinson</b> and the American actor<b> Alan Arkin</b> were always worth watching in everything they did.<p></p><p>In an episode of NCIS, DeNozzo asks Gibbs what Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard looked like as a young man. "Illya Kuryakin," he replied. <b> David McCallum</b> of course played both, replacing the smoldering enigmatic spy with the vitality and charm of the older doctor. </p><p>I've written at length about the timeless <a href="http://dreamingup.blogspot.com/2023/09/tony-bennett-1926-2023.html"><b>Tony Bennett</b>.</a> I remember <b>Jimmy Buffett</b> and <b>Randy Meisner</b> (a founder of the Eagles) from the 70s, the dynamic <b>Tina Turner</b> from even earlier. I met and interviewed <b>David Crosby</b>, not an entirely happy experience, but perhaps as much my fault as his. I suddenly came face to face with <b>Raquel Welch</b> in a Manhattan bookstore--she seemed shorter than those statuesque poster poses. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx43NfzwPvu7K9k9_d8sBgo00-RyEshA4Y3YSzAHXVfkwlOJKYu8yy5MyJD8Mh8gjQchJ8AZk2FqNJCAByC6cFbCIbEw8_lqPHXSrK-jw-KlvKWGOoOSAlYFCB-ZeapEIRNfJx63hupARyaStpXBB0AcFQNlrNC5DplLf9EjMdfqjTkYKM9pv2/s1480/melindad01.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="833" data-original-width="1480" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx43NfzwPvu7K9k9_d8sBgo00-RyEshA4Y3YSzAHXVfkwlOJKYu8yy5MyJD8Mh8gjQchJ8AZk2FqNJCAByC6cFbCIbEw8_lqPHXSrK-jw-KlvKWGOoOSAlYFCB-ZeapEIRNfJx63hupARyaStpXBB0AcFQNlrNC5DplLf9EjMdfqjTkYKM9pv2/s320/melindad01.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>I fell absolutely in love with <b>Melinda Dillon</b> in <i>Close Encounters</i>, and though she got a bit typecast, she played her character well in <i>Absence of Malice</i>. <b>Andre Braugher</b> and<b> Richard Belzer</b> I will remember from the <i>Homicide </i>series (though I recall Belzer even earlier as a standup comic.) I was not a <i>Friends</i> fan, but admired Matthew Perry's work on <i>The West Wing</i> and<i> Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip</i>. I encountered <b>Barbara Bossom</b>, a western Pennsylvania girl, at CMU with her husband Steven Bochco. I of course had watched her on the iconic <i>Hill Street Blues</i>.<p></p><p><b></b></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJPvKGLCBl97SzIYVCcpEgZoW0JBAC9EdK4TstVE0B-p20Uzse38iA8c7RqkWBERKYrqGj9abFhyphenhyphen0dVOHZTIJWVGjasH1qktcsRQRyzuPJ3bczzOdQzIdB_LTRL-C5r-ScYj8yjfjASHw8oXg6DgeLOF_FrCoHq56U7W962SCOZWc8tHMgUA17/s262/jane%20birkin02.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="192" data-original-width="262" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJPvKGLCBl97SzIYVCcpEgZoW0JBAC9EdK4TstVE0B-p20Uzse38iA8c7RqkWBERKYrqGj9abFhyphenhyphen0dVOHZTIJWVGjasH1qktcsRQRyzuPJ3bczzOdQzIdB_LTRL-C5r-ScYj8yjfjASHw8oXg6DgeLOF_FrCoHq56U7W962SCOZWc8tHMgUA17/s1600/jane%20birkin02.jpg" width="262" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jane Birkin</td></tr></tbody></table><b>Mary Quant</b> and <b>Jane Birkin</b> are linked forever to the England Swings 1960s (as is the lesser known actor<b> Shirley Ann Field</b> in several British films of their golden era in the early 60s.) <b> Daniel Ellsberg</b> represented a different 60s and 70s, as did <b>Tom Smothers</b> of the Smothers Brothers, and Vietnam era pacifist <b>David Harris</b>, while<b> Newton Minnow</b> will forever be associated with "the vast wasteland" of TV he described as FCC commissioner in the 60s. <b>Astrud Gilberto</b> had a hit with "The Girl From Ipanema" in 1964, influencing a generation of musical talents. I recall the bold installations of <b>Robert Irwin </b>as part of the liberation of the 60s.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUJB5jco1H_D1h_qecxILZEkZZx2duD6LZUsHIdi7_t1Uw5XOjx2zQXgbH68Pngp2UePHqVJRUWouAnI7zVtVN_5Fz23EgovNZrs7wbI4Ci6D005KQG0gA23j3UXynJOdIKdSWMxS4xfe4GkviYeq27IektnRuqLpEqMwuCOOn-SqXCWQi0zoq/s336/LujackLIFE.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="250" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUJB5jco1H_D1h_qecxILZEkZZx2duD6LZUsHIdi7_t1Uw5XOjx2zQXgbH68Pngp2UePHqVJRUWouAnI7zVtVN_5Fz23EgovNZrs7wbI4Ci6D005KQG0gA23j3UXynJOdIKdSWMxS4xfe4GkviYeq27IektnRuqLpEqMwuCOOn-SqXCWQi0zoq/s320/LujackLIFE.jpg" width="238" /></a></div>I remember <b>Dick Groat</b> as the shortstop on my beloved 1960s Pittsburgh Pirates world champs (He hit .325 that year and won the batting title and was the co-MVP, and I don't even have to look those up.) <b>Johnny Lujack</b> was the fabled record-setting quarterback for Notre Dame and the Chicago Bears who had a long career as a sports announcer. My father told me he was a second cousin, probably through my paternal grandmother's family, but I never met him. <p></p><p>Even further back, <b>Phyllis Coates</b> was the first Lois Lane in the 1950s <i>Adventures of Superman</i> TV series, and <b>Franco Misliacci</b> was the lyricist of "nel blu, di pinto de blu," one of a few Italian language hit records of the 50s, which later was a hit again for Robert Ridirelli (Bobby Rydell) and others by the title of its most recognizable word, "Volare." </p><p>I've written about writers who passed away in 2023 <a href="http://booksinheat.blogspot.com/2024/01/rip-2023-review.html">here</a>. Many of these strangers were part of the texture of my life, so in partial and mysterious ways, you could say I knew them. May they rest in peace and in our memories.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-35550815336217173062024-01-01T02:13:00.000-08:002024-01-01T02:13:59.121-08:00New Year's Resolution?<p> "Are you going to try to improve yourself, or are you going to let the universe improve you?"</p><p><i>Dogen</i></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-45551826425690293722023-12-21T15:40:00.000-08:002023-12-21T15:40:39.258-08:00The Morning <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6yV5niA0Kg6Xewvf7LDcoXOPHOBtcChBqINW_pOCvEAihQerWFbhYV0GUr9c5RGnwQsIlpJqjwZL-1LGY1ORvFe0ug5oC9HsLbTGfi_Bu8XlpbUyXHe0upXGlhg0wN2xKu1dG6K16X9wnnyFxmOMh9He7LkYUg36f2wchRla9j3hVgdXZ2mPU/s880/merwin05.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="880" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6yV5niA0Kg6Xewvf7LDcoXOPHOBtcChBqINW_pOCvEAihQerWFbhYV0GUr9c5RGnwQsIlpJqjwZL-1LGY1ORvFe0ug5oC9HsLbTGfi_Bu8XlpbUyXHe0upXGlhg0wN2xKu1dG6K16X9wnnyFxmOMh9He7LkYUg36f2wchRla9j3hVgdXZ2mPU/w640-h480/merwin05.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Would I love it this way if it could last<div> would I love it this way if it</div><div> were the whole sky the one heaven</div><div> or if I could believe it belonged to me</div><div> a possession that was mine alone</div><div> or if I imagined that it noticed me</div><div> recognized me and may have come to see me</div><div> out of all the mornings that I never knew</div><div> and all those that I have forgotten</div><div> would I love it this way if I were somewhere else</div><div> or if I were younger for the first time</div><div>or if these very birds were not singing</div><div> or I could not hear them or see their trees</div><div> would I love it this way if I were in pain</div><div> red torment of body or gray void of grief</div><div> would I love it this way if I knew</div><div> that I would remember anything that is</div><div> here now anything anything</div><div><br /></div><div> <i>--W.S. Merwin</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>Happy Holidays</i></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-65156560293487639502023-11-23T01:29:00.000-08:002023-11-23T01:29:24.291-08:00Beatles Now and Then<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUbDX8ze40YflJlTNJyfiU3RNVX8sQsoieVc_tI7dkZONFuN8FnhQxL78NlGvRx0rsTbXF7rvZ5PQNnzjvDi35JoUiioff-Z6-7GCyKN95rA89FNrJw6MwizhdvJJ2swtO0XfURPhQ6H1wyNCiOMqpnfajIo23Q_J_ZzdpXCioa6EmjZeWb99x/s640/beatles-now-and-then-893119698-e1698406939436-Dr4nWb.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="640" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUbDX8ze40YflJlTNJyfiU3RNVX8sQsoieVc_tI7dkZONFuN8FnhQxL78NlGvRx0rsTbXF7rvZ5PQNnzjvDi35JoUiioff-Z6-7GCyKN95rA89FNrJw6MwizhdvJJ2swtO0XfURPhQ6H1wyNCiOMqpnfajIo23Q_J_ZzdpXCioa6EmjZeWb99x/w640-h320/beatles-now-and-then-893119698-e1698406939436-Dr4nWb.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br />On November 2, a new song recording by the Beatles was released, the product of three recordings over 50 years or so: a demo cassette tape that John Lennon made at home in the mid-1970s (latest guess I've heard or seen was 1977, just three years before he was killed), then an aborted attempt to make the song into a Beatles record by Paul, George and Ringo in the mid-1990s, during the time they crafted "Free As A Bird" and "Real Love" from another Lennon tape, and now the final version created this year of 2023.<p></p><p>Technology that filmmaker Peter Jackson developed for the <a href="http://dreamingup.blogspot.com/2022/09/let-it-back.html">Get Back</a> TV film (Machine Assisted Learning, or MAL--named for the Beatles longtime road manager) made it possible recently to extract Lennon's voice from the piano and extraneous noise on the 70s cassette, which was one of the problems that led to the song being abandoned in 1995. But George had recorded a guitar track before they gave up on it, so that was available for this recording. With Paul playing bass and slide guitar, and Ringo on the drums, this song--now titled "Now and Then"--includes all four Beatles. Since there are no known recordings of new songs with both John and George (who died in 2001), this is in effect--and officially--the last Beatles song. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi08jFssFsstrygs0QvJ1-GfXpYxy0lGotQJO3R23Ku-Ai76rXuV0LbD1N3uTE7BD3Vnny4d-1iCoNOggySJVJmzjPOpUlBSn6ngAnUiXhhjgI-uB_e2NSSVXHx6ys4VXaJ6dhbQy3CoOfPCzlMnrHryRyqYrHcwxfODdRxsnqekFo0e3jJKRJt/s300/images%20(3).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi08jFssFsstrygs0QvJ1-GfXpYxy0lGotQJO3R23Ku-Ai76rXuV0LbD1N3uTE7BD3Vnny4d-1iCoNOggySJVJmzjPOpUlBSn6ngAnUiXhhjgI-uB_e2NSSVXHx6ys4VXaJ6dhbQy3CoOfPCzlMnrHryRyqYrHcwxfODdRxsnqekFo0e3jJKRJt/s1600/images%20(3).jpg" width="300" /></a></div>The song was first played on BBC radio, and became available on vinyl, together with the Beatles first release, "Love Me Do." The official version appeared<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW55J2zE3N4"> on YouTube</a> with just the plain blue and gray box, with the song's title in white. Although John's demo has been unofficially available, I'd never heard this particular song before.<p></p><p>The first thing that got to me was the clarity and vitality of John Lennon's voice. At a time when death seems all around, this was less a revival than a resurrection. The melody is enchanting, and the production is seamless. I liked the quickly neglected 90s songs more than many others did, but this is a contemporary Beatles record--part now, and part then. </p><p>The song itself has been edited from the demo version (partly because John hadn't finished the lyric), given a slightly faster tempo, and generally gets the Beatles treatment, with guitar solo and a string orchestra section. Paul and Ringo do new vocals but high harmony backgrounds by George, Paul and John are taken from previous recordings, notably "Because" on Abbey Road. There is one entire section of the demo that was dropped (which furnished its bootleg title, "I Don't Wanna Lose You,") that's now the center of online debates among Lennon enthusiasts. There were probably technical reasons for this as well as musical ones, but the song is given a classic Beatles shape, and I love it.</p><p>On November 3, the<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Opxhh9Oh3rg"> official music video</a> by Peter Jackson was released. It contained a few images never seen before, but that isn't its main contribution. Jackson crafted these few minutes to celebrate the Beatles career but most tellingly, he does so in the context of this song. "Now and Then" can seem to be a wistful meditation on a delicate love relationship, perhaps a lost love (The interrupted relationship with Yoko is an obvious possibility.) But the video presents it as a commentary on the bond among the Beatles themselves, estranged as they were for a time in the 1970s. (Though throughout that decade, two or three or even all four of them continued to work together on solo projects, and the big break between John and Paul was largely healed by the late 70s.)</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqVm22Ra7tZP5pmk0351H4z4eOPEVNwKFN1vi4zQSRpKA-Y_ZqsjykD1GIVycwCE1k7uBE2sAGmT8aoFTaoXp_T4Ahu8Hw0ZzN9ng56c563IToWcH-eQR5KHP0bda4sNhTjMfkFrHNBWMT8AqXsWVGGMN9oyelqBK7edXrZO6p1OjPRn-gyAQY/s300/images%20(6).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqVm22Ra7tZP5pmk0351H4z4eOPEVNwKFN1vi4zQSRpKA-Y_ZqsjykD1GIVycwCE1k7uBE2sAGmT8aoFTaoXp_T4Ahu8Hw0ZzN9ng56c563IToWcH-eQR5KHP0bda4sNhTjMfkFrHNBWMT8AqXsWVGGMN9oyelqBK7edXrZO6p1OjPRn-gyAQY/s1600/images%20(6).jpg" width="300" /></a></div>Instead of just intercutting clips from the past with some shots of the 2023 and 1995 recording sessions, Jackson created dazzling combinations in which Beatles from different eras interacted with each other, and even versions of themselves from another time, just as memory is part of the present. The video suggests the power of playing together over time, with the visceral effect of presence even in absence. Now and then exist together. <p></p><p> (Another layer is added with the brief shot of Giles Martin, co-producer of this record and son of George Martin, who produced all the Beatles records. In this shot he even looks like his father.)</p><p>The video starts with the reality: Paul and George working out guitar for the song in 1995. While John's voice is heard, the first images aren't of him but the gauge that measures the sound level, moving with his vocal. He's present through the machines. And yet...</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEBx7oPx0GLC7mJ0fa4X-YZza5cqsHA6jwdVdozEFC2Bb8X-7b3QfFqPjsQr4ICn5qJkT7b48X4erENTnhZ7T7qGzpufFaEoL1k1o9KdRzE5rv5gP9XYdYrXneLRmKYfFTmmzQp6GEMdXgUAJycOPA1LrMbOUdUsRVRsHOyCIRenq3fHiMFuSX/s299/images%20(9).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="299" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEBx7oPx0GLC7mJ0fa4X-YZza5cqsHA6jwdVdozEFC2Bb8X-7b3QfFqPjsQr4ICn5qJkT7b48X4erENTnhZ7T7qGzpufFaEoL1k1o9KdRzE5rv5gP9XYdYrXneLRmKYfFTmmzQp6GEMdXgUAJycOPA1LrMbOUdUsRVRsHOyCIRenq3fHiMFuSX/s1600/images%20(9).jpg" width="299" /></a></div>To get inside the song, the first image of him is a kind of silhouette, in which a scene of sunset (or sunrise) on the sea is reflected in his glasses, and a mirage appears of the four very young Beatles clowning around. The first time today's Ringo and Paul sing the chorus, after the lines "Now and then, I miss you," we see a clip of John and George in semi-hysterics during the Shea Stadium concert. Soon we see the surviving Beatles bookended by a Sgt. Pepper era George and John in a white suit, the band together again.<div><br /></div><div>Then the dizzying combinations of all four of them in different times, mostly playing together (suggesting a higher octane version of the subtly surreal baggage car scene in <i>A Hard Day's Night</i>, and some scenes in <i>Help!</i>) The images of young Lennon are so bright and full, though Jackson presents only John the cut-up and clown, rather than his more intense or gloomy or distant moments. In fact, the others are also seen frequently being silly. (Even present-day Paul gets in the act, mocking his shot playing bass, with a mugging young McCartney behind him.)<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK-eIDXH0baZy2GGd_WFgyTNt9wW2_BfHlvTBMPCbOF8CdFgiz-PvU_5FkZxunxuEdPtyN1xEfnBJE2OevFZuXZioeoL0Q5BClokfiBH-kmW-lGXeq2peWFnBjDi_QOOrBo0bXwsFqTCrlvL3TwgflTUajX0pfAtJqxiAa2e_N8R1R-MaPwos2/s311/images%20(8).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="162" data-original-width="311" height="162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK-eIDXH0baZy2GGd_WFgyTNt9wW2_BfHlvTBMPCbOF8CdFgiz-PvU_5FkZxunxuEdPtyN1xEfnBJE2OevFZuXZioeoL0Q5BClokfiBH-kmW-lGXeq2peWFnBjDi_QOOrBo0bXwsFqTCrlvL3TwgflTUajX0pfAtJqxiAa2e_N8R1R-MaPwos2/s1600/images%20(8).jpg" width="311" /></a></div><div>The video ends with a series of images that go backward in time to the four as young boys, and then the famous early 60s black-and-white bow from the stage with the bright Beatles sign behind them. Then their images disappear and the light goes dark. </div><div><div><br /></div><div>(It's the last Beatles song, but unlikely to be the last Beatles release. A number of remixed albums are in the works, and I look forward to some machine-learning magic applied to those 1995 vocals, and a new tech update to the accompanying videos.) </div><div><br /></div><div>The song soon became a Number 1 hit in the UK, breaking the record for the time between number ones by any artist or group (54 years) and the record for the most time between an artists first number one and the most recent (60 years.) The record also hit number 1 on the Billboard digital songs, and broke into the top ten on the Billboard US charts. The song is included on the newly reissued Blue album, which together with the Red album, feature the latest remixes of Beatles hits and standards, just in time for Christmas. </div><div><br /></div><div>Clearly there is a lot going on in Peter Jackson's mesmerizing video, so I suggest that in addition to watching it, you also listen to the song with no visual accompaniment, as I did the first day of its release, to feel its full effect. Either way, joy and tears, now and then. </div><div><p>Inevitably, the song applies to us as listeners, for however long the Beatles have been part of our lives. For me there was a time I thought of them every day. I needed their rhythms to face everyday life. These days I think of them only now and then, and I miss them. But I know they will be there for me. <br /></p></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-11344986089492722932023-11-12T01:24:00.000-08:002023-11-12T01:24:42.376-08:00Words Matter: Less Than Fewer<p> </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaVPjAYJPw99QGQwT_4P0lBvpHQjJ1VB0b6Q4TWTGt2P_s2gaMSCO1t0Sfe1zr3j_bpEmY_L0x5gDsb-4UdgJmRlXaiKvbBQncnCaMRqtvGxXeSabuKPCH4DUVe9XtGvd14jxtuKHfqhsfTlnZz5viS8NcFgmt5bB0co-7_Qa3ELovg7eBRXLZ/s1080/230615092817-boat-greece.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="607" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaVPjAYJPw99QGQwT_4P0lBvpHQjJ1VB0b6Q4TWTGt2P_s2gaMSCO1t0Sfe1zr3j_bpEmY_L0x5gDsb-4UdgJmRlXaiKvbBQncnCaMRqtvGxXeSabuKPCH4DUVe9XtGvd14jxtuKHfqhsfTlnZz5viS8NcFgmt5bB0co-7_Qa3ELovg7eBRXLZ/w225-h400/230615092817-boat-greece.jpg" width="225" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What are the human and political<br />implications in the difference be-<br />tween "fewer migrants" and "less<br />migrants?"</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><i>“where will the meanings be</i><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>when the words are forgotten”</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">--W.S. Merwin</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> A number of years ago I began noticing that in print and
common speech, there were fewer and fewer instances of “fewer,” and more and
more of “less.” By now, “fewer” has more or less disappeared. And our language is the lesser for it.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> It used to be that people wrote and said “less water” but
“fewer people”; “fewer fingers” but “less hair.” There was a reason for the difference. For generations we learned in school that you used “less” for
quantity, and “few” and “fewer” for numbers of individual entities. “Less” was
about measurement, “few” about counting.
Therefore: less cement and fewer bags, fewer parties and less dancing. (There are a few complicated cases, but that's the basic--and meaningful---difference.)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Few and fewer even held a kind of pride of place. Because less covered more things (including abstractions
etc), the words that merited “fewer” were fewer, and their individuality and
specificity were emphasized. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Today everything is less.
I knew we reached the nadir when I recently read the expression “less
units.” That sounds like the death
knell of the distinction between number of individuals (or units) and
quantities.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> It’s ironic that it is happening in the computer age, which
is probably responsible for it in part, with its vast power to quantify
everything. For the digital age is
based on digits, meaning numbers. Most
lives now center on various but precise numbers of zeroes and ones strung
together. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> As far as I know, nobody simply decided that there was less
need for fewer, but the implied argument is that the opposite of both few and
less is “more.” So why not get rid of
the complication, the possible confusion and embarrassment of using the wrong
word, by getting rid of the word? It’s one less word to worry about,
right? </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> As “fewer” has disappeared into “less,” so “number” has
disappeared into “amount.” For instance, Bill and Luke Walton are the only
father and son to both win two NBA championships, or as Wikipedia puts it,
Luke’s two rings are “the same amount as his father won.” </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The disappearance of the few/less, or number/amount
distinction isn’t just an American phenomenon. A quick Internet search yielded
examples from most English- speaking countries, including articles from UK’s
Economist (“less people, more water”) and AllAfrica.com. (“Less People Buy
Bibles as Condom Sales Soar.”)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> “The use of ‘less
people’ etc. is so common in British English that there seems little point in
claiming it as an error,” wrote a teacher in Great Britain to her listserv.
Another agreed that “fewer” is archaic.
“…Less means the same as fewer,” wrote someone in a different discussion
on the subject. “ So what is wrong with plain English, simpler English? Want to write a Victorian novel? Use fewer.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Apart from the dismissive scorn, the implied point is that we
moderns understand that fewer words makes more sense. In plenty of cases this
general notion is demonstrable, but depleting the language of a meaningful and useful word only lessens the ability to make the distinctions that a
sophisticated language is built to express.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">That’s important in a complex society as well as a democracy.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The other argument for less is the
natural evolution of language, but not every change is better, let alone
necessary.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">We’re clearly in the midst
of a pendulum swing from the sternly prescriptive model to the mindlessly (or
should I say robotically) descriptive, which will only accelerate as hyper-descriptive AI programs rule the information world.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"></span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Unfortunately, words are not objects of fashion.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">They aren’t handbags or hats. They are text
and subtext of communication and meaning, and in the end they tell us who we are.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Just as the relatively sudden
elimination of the fewer/less distinction may have subconscious causes, the
effects of it may also seep into how we see the world. There may even be an
attack on certain values of our society reflected in this elimination.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Perhaps we need to ask what has changed with
the phrase “less people.”</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Is it only
the grammar of “fewer” and “less,” or is it our underlying idea of people?</span> </p><p class="MsoNormal">In changing how
we express the outcome of a count, are we changing our conception of what we
are measuring? Do we see people only in
aggregates, and not in affiliations? Do
we now consider people not as integers with integrity, but as quantities that
are classified according to common characteristics? </p><p class="MsoNormal"> Perhaps in our
marketing-minded society, numbers of people translate too easily into
quantities of money, or of votes. If votes are just quantities, then stealing
them is just theft. But if votes are individual commitments added up, to cheat
is to dishonor the people who stood in line at the polls for hours in the
rain. “Count the votes” means the
voters must count more than the outcome.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Quantity applies to objects, implying
a passivity, of being acted upon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Number and counting suggest subject, capable of action:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Stand and be counted.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Few can become many. When quantities of
money have overpowering political effects, only numbers of people can balance
it.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> “Fewer” has a dignity lacking in “less.” By treating persons as quantities we send a
message of disrespect, which then becomes a deficit of self-respect.The cause of human rights is based on the individual as
significant, not as an indistinguishable element in a quantity that doesn’t
count. When justice or health depend more on quantities of money and power,
individuals count less.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Turning people into
quantities denies their individual qualities, and their individual
stories. Individuals must be judged on
their merits. They must be counted.
Quantities don’t count—they can more easily be objectified, the first
step to othering. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Where people appear most as quantities is at the border,
literally. Immigrants are not only the
most conspicuous other, they symbolize the other as a mass, as quantity. It is the fear of their quantity that haunts
people now, especially a subset of those who define themselves as white people. Think about the human as well as the political implications in the difference between "fewer migrants" and "less migrants." As in "Fewer migrants might have drowned had surrounding ships attempted rescue sooner." Or "There are now less migrants because the ships did not attempt rescue." </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihkvPevdLqyoS5rL9ZeDgcv3gZDtIxsY2FfJgArFKbZ3s9p8za4HuVN-1Dlgi0b3yd_wavrsBvkHiwPJRMsRdAIxXPISFl-6N0NCV07A3nMJ6VGbBsgFH6KMe2UUMpXrE_wZQvqivUbKmky8s86VcndVHNEpC0p6O9A8_N8mOzRLkQSISjiDaz/s2791/170804-ellis-island-ap-1160.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1513" data-original-width="2791" height="173" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihkvPevdLqyoS5rL9ZeDgcv3gZDtIxsY2FfJgArFKbZ3s9p8za4HuVN-1Dlgi0b3yd_wavrsBvkHiwPJRMsRdAIxXPISFl-6N0NCV07A3nMJ6VGbBsgFH6KMe2UUMpXrE_wZQvqivUbKmky8s86VcndVHNEpC0p6O9A8_N8mOzRLkQSISjiDaz/s320/170804-ellis-island-ap-1160.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>We see what we now call “migrants” as amounts, but seldom
look at any—or even pictures of any-- as individuals. If we did, we would
perhaps recognize a smile like an uncle had, or a frightened child like we once
were. But even if they remain as strange looking as perhaps our own ancestors, we might hear individual stories of fleeing violence, oppression and the
ravages of climate disruption. We would have to see that they count as humans
like us. Or like our blood ancestors,
even parents or grandparents, when they were immigrants. This is not to deny that mass migration is a
problem for nations—it will become an ever bigger one as climate distortion effects worsen and spread. But losing a
sense of individuals is a poor way to start addressing it. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Losing the related sense of number to the universal amount
also robs us of specificity and perhaps even poetic impact. We speak of the amorphous amount of time but
the number of days—a more specific and powerful accounting of time, as in the
Biblical verse: “Teach us to number our days that we may get us a heart of
wisdom.” </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Our language is less flexible and exact for losing fewer,
and so are we as human beings, and as human societies. I suppose there may be an entire generation
by now that has never used or even heard the word “fewer” in many
contexts. But neither that, nor anyone’s
snide scorn, will take the word away from me, because I know at least some of
its value. This word matters. So I’m proud to be counted as
one of the few.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-11320861233548723112023-10-09T02:27:00.000-07:002024-01-01T02:28:00.090-08:00TV & Me: The Power of Moyers (and Series Conclusion)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYd5eg62I_Jw8hNd6Ln7rmvNFBisog09YOy242FNb2Q1KymLfCd41hKEHwqUw7Ojur4ypDHbg_vpYbYrHZqNNASGA-x1b_jfgSlUreW6kqQpisg6A8-vU0HZyUCq2iCupJ8XO1LvEkjZwqIR3vZnpw7Oh71Tn52JywKoMjM9rpZ9lUnfNU4Q/s3197/moyers03a.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2213" data-original-width="3197" height="444" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYd5eg62I_Jw8hNd6Ln7rmvNFBisog09YOy242FNb2Q1KymLfCd41hKEHwqUw7Ojur4ypDHbg_vpYbYrHZqNNASGA-x1b_jfgSlUreW6kqQpisg6A8-vU0HZyUCq2iCupJ8XO1LvEkjZwqIR3vZnpw7Oh71Tn52JywKoMjM9rpZ9lUnfNU4Q/w640-h444/moyers03a.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>TV and I grew up together. This is our story. Last in a<a href="http://bluevoice.blogspot.com/search/label/TV%20and%20Me"> series.</a></i><br /></span><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">F</span></b>inally, there is one figure who more than any other
provided various television rescue operations, and opened new doors in my
life. Simply in terms of broadcast
journalism, there was no more important figure in the twentieth century after
Edward R. Murrow than Bill Moyers. But in his many programs (often produced by his wife, Judith Davidson Moyers) he went
far beyond the usual concerns of journalism. <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinRLZ_bfbO-PJ1FR1hPkaVBlnubdd6GxJMq2NuszPkYn96zTnR8Z4RCKqk9Y6h9k1r9-8WKnM2CK0NE-i4B5oVTdb8jv2hI35GWIqYYVTus9I2cHgDOM8c3jQ9MmT5lMYRrwltGmDnhe9h9PcHhOcwFwAf0qJIhWKbf64nQ1nHXjumNlkRxA/s480/billmoyersjournal-screenshot-of-bill-480x270.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="480" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinRLZ_bfbO-PJ1FR1hPkaVBlnubdd6GxJMq2NuszPkYn96zTnR8Z4RCKqk9Y6h9k1r9-8WKnM2CK0NE-i4B5oVTdb8jv2hI35GWIqYYVTus9I2cHgDOM8c3jQ9MmT5lMYRrwltGmDnhe9h9PcHhOcwFwAf0qJIhWKbf64nQ1nHXjumNlkRxA/s320/billmoyersjournal-screenshot-of-bill-480x270.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Born in rural Oklahoma, christened Billy Don Moyers, and
raised in Marshall, Texas, he became a teenage reporter for the local newspaper
before studying journalism at North Texas State College. A summer internship in the offices of
Senator Lyndon Johnson led to a long association that ended in the White House,
where he was President Johnson’s press secretary and unofficial chief of staff.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> But as a young man, after earning a journalism B.A. at the
University of Texas, Moyers entered divinity school, and was ordained a Baptist
minister and for awhile was a pastor for a Texas church. In 1960 he rejoined the LBJ campaign and
went to Washington to work in the Kennedy-Johnson administration, where he was
instrumental in establishing the Peace Corps. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd3NKiiN_2yGHNZ-D4BAUJVo3V1a7MH1aK8PPgHITHRxtV_2s_hYOR0C1Yh8--Di4jY5ACYTYcj2sQvSzFw-D36LOQhjSq2h3BUvuvJCceDbzZHYI0muXpYehCy64ntkcfSfoB6neIl7RxbCTxDX8rCF5GswIJVSaLAOcPZH-e-WQB6fwCcg/s600/bill-moyers.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="600" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd3NKiiN_2yGHNZ-D4BAUJVo3V1a7MH1aK8PPgHITHRxtV_2s_hYOR0C1Yh8--Di4jY5ACYTYcj2sQvSzFw-D36LOQhjSq2h3BUvuvJCceDbzZHYI0muXpYehCy64ntkcfSfoB6neIl7RxbCTxDX8rCF5GswIJVSaLAOcPZH-e-WQB6fwCcg/s320/bill-moyers.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Then after an apparently compromised tenure in the Johnson
White House, Moyers returned to journalism to set a stubborn standard for
probity and ethics. This kept him changing jobs, which included stints as
commentator on CBS and NBC evening news broadcasts. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> But it was on PBS, which he helped create in the Johnson
White House in 1967, that Moyers operated most often and most fully. An early (and recurrent) title in his many
news-oriented program of reportage, interview and commentary was <i>Bill Moyers
Journal</i>, which is the first I recall watching in the early 70s, and even
ordered transcripts of some impressive episodes. I also remember<i> A Walk
Through the 20</i><sup style="font-style: italic;">th</sup><i> Century.</i> </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj86tPZISohCnoIdG6TR1LWZ9W2hnWKoQ5_WsYoGN_1IKPhyt9yoSMYczFtKXAt8LrTlu25y74XUKtwSeHrR1BXcfWJYJOfLBqTVJX_qivfSL2xTgDR1NrocOtrjd7B6nLk-kDQyOtxpHF2G2Dw5dFy5EoFtgCo5HusdAFM2S3KhbpjygezUA/s480/bill-moyers-NOW-480x270.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="480" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj86tPZISohCnoIdG6TR1LWZ9W2hnWKoQ5_WsYoGN_1IKPhyt9yoSMYczFtKXAt8LrTlu25y74XUKtwSeHrR1BXcfWJYJOfLBqTVJX_qivfSL2xTgDR1NrocOtrjd7B6nLk-kDQyOtxpHF2G2Dw5dFy5EoFtgCo5HusdAFM2S3KhbpjygezUA/s320/bill-moyers-NOW-480x270.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Over the years he cut through official excuses and political
obfuscation to provide relevant information and succinct critiques of activities
and trends that alarmed and depressed me in the 1980s and afterwards. I
especially remember his powerful two hour environmental documentary <i>Earth on
Edge</i> in 2001, and his early 2000s weekly program, <i>Now</i>. One episode
won the Edward R. Murrow award.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Moyers also focused on journalism and its responsibilities
in relation to political life. I
remember his short series, <i>The Public Mind</i> in 1989 as particularly
powerful.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> These programs
deepened my understanding, and as upsetting as many were, they rescued me from
despair because there was someone else who saw what I saw, but in more context
and detail, eloquently expressed. I recall <i>Earth on Edge,</i> on interlocking ecological crises, as a model
documentary that ought to be taught. It
was so much better than anything else produced at PBS or elsewhere. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLqVjOHG-3KR58s2m8uZSF0DdRtGF7pJ2ZMnsI-gW-KnHz4XlKEJ7N-wj0QJgyuShvjCMFF8NZ6ETGeBM3Zq9tgMRa3LRYvvgIJ509HbemfLcuQBGRJCoegXrze4TGINPL-t7SmlOMaYDuqAmcFmgIuk2kxcfnW2fARe7gAimUemcg5azwIQ/s640/Bill-Moyers_portrait-2_crop.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLqVjOHG-3KR58s2m8uZSF0DdRtGF7pJ2ZMnsI-gW-KnHz4XlKEJ7N-wj0QJgyuShvjCMFF8NZ6ETGeBM3Zq9tgMRa3LRYvvgIJ509HbemfLcuQBGRJCoegXrze4TGINPL-t7SmlOMaYDuqAmcFmgIuk2kxcfnW2fARe7gAimUemcg5azwIQ/s320/Bill-Moyers_portrait-2_crop.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>But much as he once dumped journalism for divinity school,
Moyers kept turning to deeper and vastly different subjects-- areas of human life and
thought that underlie political realms.
These were the programs that made the most difference to me. There were
so many I can only mention the ones that were the most personally important.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Probably Moyers’ most extensive series was<b> </b><i><b>A World of
Ideas</b>,</i> begun in 1988: some 70 hour-long interviews, subtitled
“conversations with thoughtful men and women about American life today and the
ideas shaping our future.” </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Moyers was responding in part to the impoverished national
dialogue, the lack of ideas in the political discourse in that election year,
but his interviewees were not in politics: they were scholars and thinkers in
anthropology and sociology, linguistics and management, ethics and medicine,
religion and history, education, physics and environmental sciences. They were filmmakers, writers, novelists,
poet and playwright. He described his “self-appointed” mission: “ I was attempting to bring to television
the lively minds of our time.” </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfybJr1LCmbl6JzXK-LjX4TFWKGVe1Yug32fOKp8sDmp-GNhEFxoobYydpna6UYLeBUa7jC35T1HQO9fOasuluamP8gUPIdBhz70FphQSQA2zpW1ZYIruzb-OYJp487spBrP2rRSZkCrPnwpYsT1An2eNpisXIs5ihsfoxz4ZYBFFYLuTdbg/s480/WOI129_BillandAugustWilson_r-480x270.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="480" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfybJr1LCmbl6JzXK-LjX4TFWKGVe1Yug32fOKp8sDmp-GNhEFxoobYydpna6UYLeBUa7jC35T1HQO9fOasuluamP8gUPIdBhz70FphQSQA2zpW1ZYIruzb-OYJp487spBrP2rRSZkCrPnwpYsT1An2eNpisXIs5ihsfoxz4ZYBFFYLuTdbg/s320/WOI129_BillandAugustWilson_r-480x270.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>They were also—Moyers as well as his guest—excellent
company. There were some misses—I
thought Moyers wasted an hour discussing Canada as a funny foreign country with
(Canadian) Northrop Frye, one of the greatest minds applied to literature in
the 20<sup>th</sup> century. But mostly
they were enlightening and inspiring conversations. I valued equally those with figures I knew and wanted to know
more of (like August Wilson, Maxine Hong Kingston, Peter Sellars, Richard
Rodriguez, Issac Asimov and Toni Morrison), and with those introduced into my
world for the first time (like philosopher Jacob Needleman, anthropologist Mary
Catherine Bateson, classicist Martha Nussbaum, educator Vartan Gregorian and
historian of religion Elaine Pagels.) <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHEsAvdKqZgMgbieues2LWadhUaXdzUOVtDbnCuoAxaVdiQMrKjc6EBos4WCR2UToeKcdwKWzNVcM0_R43EScmE_836wkNtx_bHzW_h2lxXt3AO7bZzr7awRBDl3Lv177RmnJdvbrb8DYsac-PJl_AIoNurGuFH0-mfo-zBYG88fBvsCq0ow/s480/erdrich-480x270.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="480" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHEsAvdKqZgMgbieues2LWadhUaXdzUOVtDbnCuoAxaVdiQMrKjc6EBos4WCR2UToeKcdwKWzNVcM0_R43EScmE_836wkNtx_bHzW_h2lxXt3AO7bZzr7awRBDl3Lv177RmnJdvbrb8DYsac-PJl_AIoNurGuFH0-mfo-zBYG88fBvsCq0ow/s320/erdrich-480x270.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>The timing of these interviews was significant in
introducing me to three Native American figures when I was beginning an
exploration of American Indian literature and culture that would grow over the
next decade of my life: Onondaga chief and national leader Oren Lyons (with
whom Moyers also did a separate program), and contemporary American Indian
novelists Louise Erdrich and Michael Dorris (pictured.) Like everything else Moyers did for PBS, these interviews were rerun
several times (especially during pledge drives), and I managed to tape quite a
few of them for later study. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <span style="text-align: center;">In 1989 Moyers
visited a biannual poetry festival to record the readings and interview the
poets in the series </span><i style="text-align: center;">The Power of the Word.</i><span style="text-align: center;"> </span><span style="text-align: center;">It would be the first of several such series (for instance </span><i style="text-align: center;">The
Language of Life</i><span style="text-align: center;"> in 1995, </span><i style="text-align: center;">The Sounds of Poetry</i><span style="text-align: center;"> and </span><i style="text-align: center;">Fooling with
Words </i><span style="text-align: center;">in 1999, and interviews with individual poets on his revived Bill Moyers Journal) featuring a broad range of poets.</span><span style="text-align: center;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvRWV3O3Kk1iEnLp-VxaCGoNGG-cQbe-5xJgtWqpcrmqpoybKxSgZwiBHpEPZCbsFjm1MeW1HddbMAS8xSeehkkVXYikBwzZLf9Eoogw5H-vTdQvFxgZ1XW1GdOvYtGdSWW2JvKAixXf8lGTxy0A5UbPXAYo9zJly9MMZirYiikQaktNZvrQ/s480/the-simple-acts-of-life-olds-kinnell-480x270.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="480" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvRWV3O3Kk1iEnLp-VxaCGoNGG-cQbe-5xJgtWqpcrmqpoybKxSgZwiBHpEPZCbsFjm1MeW1HddbMAS8xSeehkkVXYikBwzZLf9Eoogw5H-vTdQvFxgZ1XW1GdOvYtGdSWW2JvKAixXf8lGTxy0A5UbPXAYo9zJly9MMZirYiikQaktNZvrQ/s320/the-simple-acts-of-life-olds-kinnell-480x270.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">poets Sharon Olds and Galway Kinnell</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="text-align: left;">The first episode of </span><i style="text-align: left;">The Power of the Word</i><span style="text-align: left;"> with
William Stafford, Lucille Clifton Octavio Paz, Robert Bly, Sharon Olds, and
Galway Kinnell, shows interactions between poets and students (many in high
school) who attended the conference. The atmosphere is warm, and it definitely
heats up at the end with Olds and Kinnell trading love poems.</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk2H3URp3UilIH_OoyfeyOhwDv3yxcWNKaZbUOafK0gS61cU6xknpB-ihg9FG1uH9KUx0kVKR82GJZWKYELGmZ7YrsbMNrN_Uhe2J_YgvfX4YyhRHuiNcdqgrgCkWIUPfnNoWeV-IA4w9X9NdKIeRGmURE4QXyBRLuqVjdH3IqiJSOnKyGrw/s480/Li-Young-Lee-480x270.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="480" height="113" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk2H3URp3UilIH_OoyfeyOhwDv3yxcWNKaZbUOafK0gS61cU6xknpB-ihg9FG1uH9KUx0kVKR82GJZWKYELGmZ7YrsbMNrN_Uhe2J_YgvfX4YyhRHuiNcdqgrgCkWIUPfnNoWeV-IA4w9X9NdKIeRGmURE4QXyBRLuqVjdH3IqiJSOnKyGrw/w200-h113/Li-Young-Lee-480x270.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">poet Li-Young Lee</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> The second explores
poetry in prisons with James Autry and Quincy Troupe; the third, “Ancestral
Voices” highlights the through-line of tradition in contemporary life with Joy
Harjo, Barett Kauro Hongo and Mary Tall Mountain. Then poets Li-Young Lee and Gerald Stern explore the poetry of
memory. <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhim6b-tlLDbiteAquSwSP1LzfYnbLPKCp2gWyMJt4OUwvLrGrxfI7n8n26DNPefX8YAhYLBdBgMGtHKdjE3zK1ELevTQ3cPt7SdlrUdVgc55Bh7eMyCqrnMnVn_yjiMe0qPIPotdrugv1Cn1LfhJFGt0QJIst0YWLaW2oKsIQsHnCQ4P-QlQ/s480/lucille-clifton-480x270.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="480" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhim6b-tlLDbiteAquSwSP1LzfYnbLPKCp2gWyMJt4OUwvLrGrxfI7n8n26DNPefX8YAhYLBdBgMGtHKdjE3zK1ELevTQ3cPt7SdlrUdVgc55Bh7eMyCqrnMnVn_yjiMe0qPIPotdrugv1Cn1LfhJFGt0QJIst0YWLaW2oKsIQsHnCQ4P-QlQ/s320/lucille-clifton-480x270.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lucille Clifton</td></tr></tbody></table>A full hour is
devoted to Stanley Kunitz, then one of the most respected American poets at age
84 (he lived to be 101.) The final
program is “Where the Soul Lives,”
featuring W.S. Merwin, Lucille Clifton and Robert Bly. Bly ends the series on stage with the Paul
Winter Consort reciting a short poem by Rumi, the concluding lines I have since
often quoted: <i>“Let the beauty we love be what we do./There are hundreds of
ways to kneel and kiss the earth.”</i> <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Again, I taped some of these programs and over the years
they continued to nourish and center me.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDCOtw_ChnQRiUoun4QLeyLdEgWx1lFynftYNY38455sIvX-O5hWZR1Xq53qKi79XjB0x_GSWnbYKZft5IOAa3zk8Llv9DaEJjJ2Dst-z2e55hpTlycc2HDSuGPfAXocbHKRu9eqjp67bVKeUIHIGzA63jey9dzt8dFpwfguYgwr1IwJgQrA/s483/robert-bly-1990.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="358" data-original-width="483" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDCOtw_ChnQRiUoun4QLeyLdEgWx1lFynftYNY38455sIvX-O5hWZR1Xq53qKi79XjB0x_GSWnbYKZft5IOAa3zk8Llv9DaEJjJ2Dst-z2e55hpTlycc2HDSuGPfAXocbHKRu9eqjp67bVKeUIHIGzA63jey9dzt8dFpwfguYgwr1IwJgQrA/s320/robert-bly-1990.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> Robert Bly was prominent in this episode, and he was a focus
of the 1990 production of <i>A Gathering of Men</i>. The so-called men’s movement, and Bly’s part in it, were
distorted, trivialized and lied about for years. They were ridiculed, and the men who participated were cruelly
shamed. Moyers showed that this one
event was serious, sincere, not political or a hostile escape from women but an
exploration of feelings and their denial, particularly about a man’s
relationship to his father. Though
others including psychologists James Hillman and Michael Meade not shown in
this program were also leaders of these workshops, they all—like Bly-- employed
poetry, myth and fairy tales to explore this and related issues. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> I’ve never attended a men’s group, and I did not always
agree completely with Bly at the pitch of his enthusiasms. But whatever other
such gatherings were like, the ones these men led were serious attempts that
met a need. This program on its own is
a tentative exploration that remains a useful introduction. When I first saw it, these questions were
new to me, but they immediately resonated.
This arrived at about the same time as related discussions about
children of alcoholics and forms of abuse felt by children were being explored
for a general public, or at least that’s when they were reaching me. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii8DEe4iorZq8yN7ieA9KyZ3E350AvPn1-iI0TuF6mAp2yqsqcjxt9eqfoLL97hG3Wt5IOsnX5gFiVhxUBU9DucaP2cwXO4riVhAty5u6A4fMntDpTxeG-qI8wgXb58xaD87uFtAIBqKdFoQ4zI0C2lEzsAC1DIMeQplWGjKTMpGU-FfGQgA/s416/atwood-amins-faith%20r.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="416" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii8DEe4iorZq8yN7ieA9KyZ3E350AvPn1-iI0TuF6mAp2yqsqcjxt9eqfoLL97hG3Wt5IOsnX5gFiVhxUBU9DucaP2cwXO4riVhAty5u6A4fMntDpTxeG-qI8wgXb58xaD87uFtAIBqKdFoQ4zI0C2lEzsAC1DIMeQplWGjKTMpGU-FfGQgA/s320/atwood-amins-faith%20r.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Martin Amis, Margaret Atwood</td></tr></tbody></table>These programs foregrounding poetry are among those that
were centered on a particular conference or festival, where the Moyers team
filmed the public events and some audience response or interaction, and Moyers
interviewed principal participants.
Others include the <i>Spirit and Nature</i> program in 1991, which
featured an interview with the Dalai Lama, and the <i>Faith and Reason</i>
series in 2006, which provided a rare interview with the revered Buddhist monk
Pema Chodron, as well as lively and absorbing conversations with Salman
Rushdie, Margaret Atwood and Martin Amis.
Apart from providing a permanent digest of these proceedings for the
many who were not there, the words preserved in these programs continue to
stimulate thought and suggest new perspectives. <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6iTaNPf8bETHt-rJ47PXpUBMY-FGSZmGzPWv_bvqKA6niipgR8MPa4OdoADN77Ij-zzo_ktq-XyHF1MWHZCkZ7GyzjWTfxDd0moFp-WNg-ugxozXfpcLTgUvwcBVsk8tClxYsJmRM4QRJhiwlFPBT9f9KpSuG7ErbwIH00vWykMCq5cAqlg/s480/healing_crop-480x270.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="480" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6iTaNPf8bETHt-rJ47PXpUBMY-FGSZmGzPWv_bvqKA6niipgR8MPa4OdoADN77Ij-zzo_ktq-XyHF1MWHZCkZ7GyzjWTfxDd0moFp-WNg-ugxozXfpcLTgUvwcBVsk8tClxYsJmRM4QRJhiwlFPBT9f9KpSuG7ErbwIH00vWykMCq5cAqlg/w320-h180/healing_crop-480x270.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Other programs were pieced together from research and
interviews in various places, as the five-part 1993 series <i>Healing and the
Mind</i>. Modern western medicine had
long discounted any connection between mind (including emotions) with physical
processes and health: it was all about mechanics, all about the plumbing. Anything else was considered superstition. When reports circulated of some Buddhist
monks being able to control blood pressure during meditations, it was
considered at best an unverified mystery, or more typically as occult nonsense.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> This was only beginning to change in the early 1990s, and
this series of programs was groundbreaking in revealing how much practical work
and theory was ongoing, even in hospitals and clinics, exploring the
relationship of brain, mind and body.
Experts and practitioners discussed relations of the brain and emotions
with the immune system, the effects of environment and community on healing,
and generally a new, broader attitude to treat patients holistically, as well
as ways for individuals to provide for their own health.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Today most of the practices discussed, from mindfulness and
acupuncture to support groups and mothers holding their newborns immediately
after birth, are mainstream. Most
therapies are such normal elements of treatment that insurance often covers
them. Similarly, the hospice care I
first glimpsed in <i>On Our Own Terms: Moyers on Dying</i> (2000) was a rare
approach then, but very much accepted now. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdq5HHF2s3GFj1CVwcT9rPL30Y7kgSQMQgJ4tkg7yW2uEXnf5FfRK4M8E_r3YeJHcw6HwX8sW3r_CgeboZc9SMPb40RtMZd1oHlU7YkL3rghELTZPL9LT6y_SNR9MZyPaMkDVPvz_LRNa5qrdh5TOKBzvwalxkTFcpedX46JqsSLX86ug2eA/s200/kabat-zinn.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="150" data-original-width="200" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdq5HHF2s3GFj1CVwcT9rPL30Y7kgSQMQgJ4tkg7yW2uEXnf5FfRK4M8E_r3YeJHcw6HwX8sW3r_CgeboZc9SMPb40RtMZd1oHlU7YkL3rghELTZPL9LT6y_SNR9MZyPaMkDVPvz_LRNa5qrdh5TOKBzvwalxkTFcpedX46JqsSLX86ug2eA/s1600/kabat-zinn.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>The segment of <i>Healing and the Mind</i> that most stayed
with me was Moyers exploring the work of Jon Kabatt-Zinn at the University of
Massachusetts Medical Center’s Stress Reduction clinic, where he was employing
the radical idea of addressing intractable back pain with the practice of
meditation. Kabatt-Zinn’s variation on
single-point or mindfulness meditation was still relatively new to America,
especially outside Buddhist monasteries and related places like the Zen Center
in San Francisco. His techniques were
demonstrated, and he talked persuasively about them.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The program referred to Kabatt-Zinn’s book<i>, Full
Catastrophe Living</i>, which included instructions on meditation and the “body
scan” he employs, as well as a couple of yoga regimes. I got that book and the associated tapes in
which Kabatt-Zinn speaks you through the process. When it comes to physical movements I am a slow learner, and
group instruction just befuddles me. So
I used the tapes in conjunction with diagrams in the book to learn one of the
yoga regimes, and I did it regularly for years. Though I still use aspects of it, maybe it’s time to return to it
in a more formal way. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The experience Bill Moyers had was similar to mine, and many
others: the body scan was a revelation, while meditation was hard and confusing
and a bit irritating. But it opened the
door to learning the practice of meditation in various ways, including a deeper
understanding of Zen practice. This has
been a major theme in my learning for the past 30 years, and it effectively
began with this segment. And I still
use several of Kabatt-Zinn’s guided meditations, and profit from a couple of his
subsequent books on the subject.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Again, I acquired many of the companion books to these
Moyers programs (several published by Doubleday thanks to senior editor
Jacqueline Kennedy.) They remain active
resources. Many of the programs themselves are accessible via YouTube, PBS and the <a href="https://billmoyers.com/">Bill Moyers.com website</a>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgl2GFlaZTedBu0nKQy5Ts6Q1kZLnF3uCk_sF0BKf7tpfBnR9133Ae-AMB--4TQ2rMh4roPkpOumtkpNQU6c6e3oCym1gDo8KT15KRVu3U1_40g7M6gOB8PFqAR_TqOFLU3kfKouJhwQfVJDU5vGNVl1KBS_B4w0mGg_qLva7cVIYMERkUAA/s631/campbell3_powerofmyth.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="469" data-original-width="631" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgl2GFlaZTedBu0nKQy5Ts6Q1kZLnF3uCk_sF0BKf7tpfBnR9133Ae-AMB--4TQ2rMh4roPkpOumtkpNQU6c6e3oCym1gDo8KT15KRVu3U1_40g7M6gOB8PFqAR_TqOFLU3kfKouJhwQfVJDU5vGNVl1KBS_B4w0mGg_qLva7cVIYMERkUAA/w400-h297/campbell3_powerofmyth.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>I have saved the most popular—and for me the most
influential—of these many Moyers programs for last. In 1988, Moyers interviewed
Joseph Campbell, previously unknown to the general public, with associated
images from his work on world mythologies over six one-hour episodes. <i>The Power of Myth</i> became one of the
most popular TV series in PBS history. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> I saw it when it first aired (and turned up repeatedly for
awhile on PBS fund drives), but a recent re-viewing reminded me of an aspect I
hadn’t thought much about: that these interviews took place during the last two
summers of Campbell’s life. This series
made him famous, but posthumously. By the time it first aired, this Joseph
Campbell-- so alive in personality, knowledge and understanding, who we were
meeting for the first time-- was already gone.
He had been dealing with cancer those last years, so mortality was not
an academic subject. As I watched it this time I was acutely aware of the
additional power in his words on death and its meaning. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbGbVKmofgYuinAoiY_vG0M3mutamK0ZmqZvSo9v5wColpXOaNME6g9WjOuIeqjCHSydIk25Uo54CRV3k1MCo-L-pwoVW_TkQI6hjoiQxSuzh8DxIew1dE2js-wQEikkAwoJLyWJbN2Z9EgBn3_TcO38au7agS6xZi0OQemLeez-afeBSlBQ/s264/campbell04.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="264" data-original-width="191" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbGbVKmofgYuinAoiY_vG0M3mutamK0ZmqZvSo9v5wColpXOaNME6g9WjOuIeqjCHSydIk25Uo54CRV3k1MCo-L-pwoVW_TkQI6hjoiQxSuzh8DxIew1dE2js-wQEikkAwoJLyWJbN2Z9EgBn3_TcO38au7agS6xZi0OQemLeez-afeBSlBQ/w145-h200/campbell04.jpg" width="145" /></a></div>Joseph Campbell was born into a prosperous New York Irish
Catholic family in 1904. Just as Carl
Sagan had his defining childhood experience at the World of Tomorrow World’s
Fair, Campbell never got over his first glimpses of Native American masks,
totem poles and other artifacts at New York’s Museum of Natural History.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> He attended Columbia where he was a world class runner. He
took from higher education what he wanted and during the Depression set his own
course of study, living alone in an unheated cabin in Woodstock, dividing his
day into three reading periods and one for rest. He had his own circuitous
adventures-- Joyce scholar (the first book of his I owned was his <i>Skeleton
Key to Finnegans Wake</i>), friend of John Steinbeck, poet, Sanskrit expert and
world traveler--and wound up pretty much inventing his own field of mythological
studies.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga2OePhqYHV_k5_ZCBTI3vwuYaJH690hAkG-g84JOmXtn7v22GwfMd-X6CkGAkNQoPyYzlzIl6UC9b8ZzIs64HaCcSYTaztfxvneoaF5YcqktXQNDCiInh5EyuQrtWBeeToCvA382_r9Si_rXN9vPHMYxFlrO7-Q358soN3h3JAiJynMbDdw/s640/Joseph_Campbell_AP8905130582.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga2OePhqYHV_k5_ZCBTI3vwuYaJH690hAkG-g84JOmXtn7v22GwfMd-X6CkGAkNQoPyYzlzIl6UC9b8ZzIs64HaCcSYTaztfxvneoaF5YcqktXQNDCiInh5EyuQrtWBeeToCvA382_r9Si_rXN9vPHMYxFlrO7-Q358soN3h3JAiJynMbDdw/s320/Joseph_Campbell_AP8905130582.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> His many books, such as <i>The Hero With A Thousand Faces,</i>
were influential with scholars and artists.
But it was the six-part <i>The Power of Myth</i> series that made him an
icon, as he eloquently explained the patterns of mythology and the meanings he
derived from them.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Though the series
included visual illustrations of some myths, the programs were basically little
more than Campbell talking, with conversational prompts from a completely
engaged Bill Moyers. Yet the series was
enormously popular. It’s likely that
many viewers got their first inklings of Buddhist and Hindu thought as well as
traditional stories from Native American and other Indigenous peoples, from
these programs. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> But this wasn’t a mythological travelogue; Campbell distilled
his own conclusions and related these stories to questions of the eternal
within time, to the importance of the present moment, and the central functions
of compassion and the individual experience.
He’d taught college students for many years, and spoke directly to their
needs and yearnings. His most famous and therefore most misunderstood statement
of “follow your bliss” was a profoundly religious message, shorn of any sense
of sectarianism, let alone hedonism. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhATaxiHWwFBak-DEtS9c8OqahuF0bhw5Avabkkfuso0ZpbeNxMatqqgOruZpeMknVel75pRegTlQvzigI4vVYTgysWqinHSTt3ahYfkVHOM6o9abMGRtUQwvH-jO-dQFuMHpL4pKoy7XRghXZaNAGHwe8HYtHr2IuL2H5k8rkdAdTlGiVHbw/s299/download.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="299" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhATaxiHWwFBak-DEtS9c8OqahuF0bhw5Avabkkfuso0ZpbeNxMatqqgOruZpeMknVel75pRegTlQvzigI4vVYTgysWqinHSTt3ahYfkVHOM6o9abMGRtUQwvH-jO-dQFuMHpL4pKoy7XRghXZaNAGHwe8HYtHr2IuL2H5k8rkdAdTlGiVHbw/s1600/download.jpg" width="299" /></a></div>Seeing the series again left me with two major
impressions. First, that so much of
what has absorbed me in these recent decades in some sense began with this
program. I even had forgotten that certain ideas and beliefs that I think of as
essential to my life had their origin or at least articulation in these
programs. (For example, that religion may have begun when humans dealt with the
paradox of killing the animals they revered.)<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> This series first aired when I was beginning to explore, in
sometimes unrelated ways, Native American cultures and beliefs, the psychology
of James Hillman and eventually his source, Carl Jung, and ecology in a deeper
way. This series touched on all of them
and more. Now my bookshelves contain
dozens of books on these and related subjects, as well as several of Campbell’s
books.</p><p class="MsoNormal">As those books attest, Campbell remains an important and an intriguing figure. Before his Moyers appearance he gave many lectures and radio talks (as well as a very early Home Book Office series on a Jungian interpretation of mythology.) The essays derived from these talks published in his book<i> Myths to Live By </i>are both very direct and uncompromising. They provide probably the best summaries of Buddhist and Hindu concepts for his time. Campbell seemed to believe he would be understood no matter how complex and unfamiliar his topic, as long as he spoke clearly and expressed the enthusiasm he felt. On many levels he was a man without fear.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The second impression is that having explored these topics
and these thinkers and writers for the past quarter century and more, I found
much more to learn and ponder in re-watching <i>The Power of Myth</i> than I
could understand or accommodate back then.
That applies in different ways to other programs that Bill Moyers
made. They continue to nourish, as they
once opened up new worlds, rescuing me from becoming mired in the goading
limitations of the unembraceable world I was supposed to negotiate. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXVCpXqMI_l86nWBos7ORxeSgSCNPbEpVEkgQBOezZuIQGir1Bmb7lKA6LSYFJZDscyvQdYm2YjwB9UTSsFWmfW830N8s8dy4k2HhZWap8FrToViLx4FtyWQ4qukH_SlFYISve1Xa8jeJt9RhmzzjfDirnVyaz_RcGTLJlUeJWxyZ6g-NBOA/s640/Bill-Moyers__cropped.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXVCpXqMI_l86nWBos7ORxeSgSCNPbEpVEkgQBOezZuIQGir1Bmb7lKA6LSYFJZDscyvQdYm2YjwB9UTSsFWmfW830N8s8dy4k2HhZWap8FrToViLx4FtyWQ4qukH_SlFYISve1Xa8jeJt9RhmzzjfDirnVyaz_RcGTLJlUeJWxyZ6g-NBOA/s320/Bill-Moyers__cropped.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>These programs represent a small sample of the programs Bill
Moyers created, every one of them thought-provoking and informative, and many
of them revelatory. Over the years,
Moyers and his collaborators have created more worthy programs than any other
individual or group, and perhaps more than some entire networks.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Bill Moyers demonstrated the power of television to expand
and deepen our experience. There should
be a thousand Moyers. But there is only
one. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b><span style="font-size: medium;">W</span></b>ith TV as a medium
for myth and story, ideas and mysteries and their magic-- examples of
television’s potential so rarely realized that they seem alien rather than what
you’d expect intelligent people to do with this miraculous medium—this series
ends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From Hopalong Cassidy and Howdy
Doody to <i>The Power of Myth</i>—not such an inconsistent journey after all. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs_gZ_zEwKJH4GcjTq7kOW06j-8lBeLC0JedWBxvZYWvWF1BnIyUKpfSGxTTWERt_hjNTfL6MTYjzzXC_7k1PCwiJyFXcDYuf2mH_rqAKJNuEL3shvDHQSRwcmRx4LG_gAo8RJQyrut14Pazc3yy1nH1x4G9ZArCHk8Do_2cKmorQccmq4aw/s2048/228lr54.1.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1308" data-original-width="2048" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs_gZ_zEwKJH4GcjTq7kOW06j-8lBeLC0JedWBxvZYWvWF1BnIyUKpfSGxTTWERt_hjNTfL6MTYjzzXC_7k1PCwiJyFXcDYuf2mH_rqAKJNuEL3shvDHQSRwcmRx4LG_gAo8RJQyrut14Pazc3yy1nH1x4G9ZArCHk8Do_2cKmorQccmq4aw/w400-h255/228lr54.1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My family's living room 1954</td></tr></tbody></table>By an accident of history and my birth date, I am one of a
dwindling number of those who grew up as television was growing up. It occurred to me to make a contribution of
my recollections, both to evoke memories in my relatively few contemporaries,
and inform and perhaps amuse the many who did not spend early Saturday mornings
of their preschool years staring at test patterns.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> This series presented memories of secondary things
(sometimes called “mediated experiences”) as distinguished from primary
experiences with people and the world.
Though as I tried to indicate, these two categories of experience were not entirely separate in
reality. TV experiences and other
experiences had dynamic relationships in my life, as well as the life of my
times.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> In combination with other important and more primary
factors, I grew up as I did because I grew up with television, with its role
models, cautionary tales, morality fables, personalities, implied histories,
conventional lies, information and hints at how the world works—as well as its
sensory overloads and simultaneous sensory deprivations, its addictive rhythms,
its bright and phony hedonism, its careless deceptions, its palliative
hypnotism.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Experiences with
people on TV (more clearly double—the person and the person played, but then,
real people are also double, at least) at a seemingly intimate distance (though often
distant in time as well as space) placed them in the realms of timeless
imagination and speculation, as well as becoming presences in my life.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Along the way I read (and wrote) scathing critiques of television. It's worth remembering that long before the warnings of how the Internet and social media are changing how we perceive the world, and even physically changing our brains, there were many who made similar claims about the dangers of television. From McLuhan in the 1960s (who masked his own disapproval in language that sounded to others like revelation) to Jerry Mander's <i>Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television</i> in the late 70s and Neil Postman's <i>Amusing Ourselves to Death</i> in the mid-80s, these cultural, personal and civilization-scale dangers were enumerated and articulated. And these authors were not wrong. Nevertheless, television is what we had. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> I was not entirely immune to the underlying pathologies of
television—to TV as addictive narcotic, to the buy this to be happier
temptations, or the hypocrisy of loathing what you nevertheless watch, and
loathing yourself for watching it. But almost everything about TV had at least
two sides.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Yes, television probably made reading harder by fracturing my attention span (as did hormones, as least as much.) But television alerted me to new things to read. And the list goes on from there.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The rhythms of TV and its characters influenced the rhythms
of my day, as well as causing dissatisfaction with the plodding and exhaustion
of real life. And they gave me parts to
play in my head, that at best might counter the false parts the world and
others insisted on imposing. They
expressed and evoked emotions mirrored but hidden within me. Books and movies did, too, but not in such everyday ways. (Music did as well, but with differences.)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The real world—and the real me—seldom matched those images,
including those that at various times I realized were unworthy. TV relentlessly, unashamedly oversold the
trivial, which made it maddening, even if some of it exposes the triviality and
the madness. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidQd6ipsl0FOY5Xa4hHPGPAUdJ2d5GVSxxQvJPuHB79btqA0XUroZAYXlWq0gPmEQYcDLn7lOSHVuC8-1DeWbhKgYjQKQot0E-HsCe12ELQTGbZwfds9erVDZCBfTEmT_D6KKlqjLppyJ9_LYhqdubeAWYtevhvgU_cQTLW-P-C7hyphenhyphenydX4f9XdUw/s800/snow%20tv.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="543" data-original-width="800" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidQd6ipsl0FOY5Xa4hHPGPAUdJ2d5GVSxxQvJPuHB79btqA0XUroZAYXlWq0gPmEQYcDLn7lOSHVuC8-1DeWbhKgYjQKQot0E-HsCe12ELQTGbZwfds9erVDZCBfTEmT_D6KKlqjLppyJ9_LYhqdubeAWYtevhvgU_cQTLW-P-C7hyphenhyphenydX4f9XdUw/s320/snow%20tv.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>There’s no sense in speculating what I would be like if I
hadn’t grown up with TV, any more than I could know how I would have been
different without electric lights and Italian food, and a loving mother, Catholic schools (like Joseph Campbell) and butterflies in the backyard of my little town. Or what if I been born into wealth and/or power in a vivid metropolis, not to mention at the other end of that spectrum. Our time and its contexts shape (but don’t
necessarily determine) how we think and feel, as well as how we live. By this time in my life, it's mostly metaphor. <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In this series, despite its length, I’ve skated on the
surface of my growing up with TV, for the depths are still murky.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> But I felt compelled to bear witness, and especially to acknowledge and celebrate what meant something to me at a particular time. </span>I enjoyed discovering historical contexts
for the television I experienced in the early days I shared with TV. Perhaps some who
read this, who may yet read this, whether they share all or some of these
times, or view it as partially grasped history, will find something to enjoy in
it as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-22820108219181680862023-09-11T00:25:00.000-07:002023-09-11T00:25:35.638-07:00TV and Me: The PBS Oasis<p><i> Television and I grew up together. This is our story. Latest in a <a href="http://dreamingup.blogspot.com/search/label/TV%20and%20Me">series</a>.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj0ZGvDnfCielc2ku6UBsaSAnDw62h_VxUxz6XvMc0YoE2BKi_0WfBOcCO6Vy60brqq_h6lEjWh_RB5C9T7BgNscCKtGPpAaE1f-qAy_jxC7UYQq2tTia-iiQDONjQYNnC0Fw7-BtHGA7mAaZXuBmUnnW5L_0HH0E0gdMPxG-OwGzLYkurwA/s3264/pbs02a.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj0ZGvDnfCielc2ku6UBsaSAnDw62h_VxUxz6XvMc0YoE2BKi_0WfBOcCO6Vy60brqq_h6lEjWh_RB5C9T7BgNscCKtGPpAaE1f-qAy_jxC7UYQq2tTia-iiQDONjQYNnC0Fw7-BtHGA7mAaZXuBmUnnW5L_0HH0E0gdMPxG-OwGzLYkurwA/w640-h480/pbs02a.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />During the 1970s and especially the 80s and beyond, the vast
wasteland of television increased in vastness and waste.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jerry Springer springs to mind, along with
Dynasty and Dallas, Inside Edition, shopping channels, Faux News, and various
other forms of supermarket tabloid trash TV, paving the way for our current
trash Internet anarchy.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Television’s potential was being obliterated even from
memory, but these dumbed-down shows with their psychotic grins exploiting
violent versions of lowest denominator banality weren’t the whole story in
those decades. There was, as principal example, PBS: the Public Broadcasting Service, officially founded in 1969. Fighting off fierce political attack for much of the past 40
years or more, and not immune to the dumbing down and chicanery infecting
television in general, nevertheless PBS remained a beacon of possibility. For me as a viewer it was often an oasis in the Great Wasteland that provided me with the rescue of
inspiring and expanding programs.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> As described in the previous post in this series, some of
the shows that rescued me originated in other countries (principally the UK and
Canada), and were presented to me via PBS stations. Now this series on TV and me
concludes with tributes to some deeply influential programs that PBS created or
had a hand in creating.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvAr0N5nSK-VqszecyuuRA1AHyycapTm3EkBL-eWpI6ZCr70RttbsOwjU1ULvCMYrH0Shclo8mBlsTPGp2sWR7Iyre_-PgwUsKf4T_MbVi5-fZQPh-FLdl7nsBgHy08dhiYHbRzNdMZVxjqyntO6KHifcl3NTv44LlNwK6cpm9zLnhF2TwdQ/s1140/rogers-1569254941.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="798" data-original-width="1140" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvAr0N5nSK-VqszecyuuRA1AHyycapTm3EkBL-eWpI6ZCr70RttbsOwjU1ULvCMYrH0Shclo8mBlsTPGp2sWR7Iyre_-PgwUsKf4T_MbVi5-fZQPh-FLdl7nsBgHy08dhiYHbRzNdMZVxjqyntO6KHifcl3NTv44LlNwK6cpm9zLnhF2TwdQ/w400-h280/rogers-1569254941.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fred Rogers with Josie Carey WQED Pittsburgh early 1950s</td></tr></tbody></table> More generally, PBS was a persistent highlight of
television. The Pittsburgh public
television station I first watched, WQED, was one of the first educational
channels (eventually organized into NET or National Educational Television, one PBS precursor) and it was the very first to be community-sponsored in the country (which I
guess meant corporations based in Pittsburgh as well as local viewers
contributions.) I was nearly 8 years
old when it went on the air. <div><br /></div><div>Though our signal reception was iffy for the first years and most of the programming consisted of
classes, I remember Josie Carey and her <i>The Children’s Hour</i> at 5 pm, just
before <i>Howdy Doody</i> on WDTV. Josie and
Miss Francis on Ding Dong School were among my earliest teachers. (Not
including Crusader Rabbit and Tom Terrific cartoons which I glimpsed mornings
just before going to school.) Backstage at Josie Carey’s show was puppeteer and organ
accompanist Fred Rogers. Her set would
be modified for his show in the 1960s, and many of the same characters would
appear.<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> By the early 1970s, PBS news coverage would become trenchant
and important. PBS doggedly covered the
various Watergate hearings, anchored by Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer, with
analysis by Elizabeth Drew and the very young Cokie Roberts. The daily MacNeil/Lehrer Report was
essential.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBHAhopXlTjBV-HgyCKzykgL2xZDXQ-4k-NZqqdDJcp3ML6l3YtRGC5HHaAqMcMWqofQlVKWHVwrMqeQcsE5rK5puzkvJJJAEJhkEo5HoZDqiv3xES_z1XAx8rsjK8CsL2tibiEoszCeogbVbWzWIW35y9OttS7gpCfbDtrAfpg-75u_VLFA/s1920/bron03.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBHAhopXlTjBV-HgyCKzykgL2xZDXQ-4k-NZqqdDJcp3ML6l3YtRGC5HHaAqMcMWqofQlVKWHVwrMqeQcsE5rK5puzkvJJJAEJhkEo5HoZDqiv3xES_z1XAx8rsjK8CsL2tibiEoszCeogbVbWzWIW35y9OttS7gpCfbDtrAfpg-75u_VLFA/s320/bron03.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> But I was mostly in awe of a number of their themed
documentary series. I didn’t have regular access to television when the Kenneth
Clark <i>Civilization</i> series ran in 1969, so my first experience with this
form was <i><b>The Ascent of Man,</b> </i>which
was first shown in the US in early 1975, before I left Greensburg for
Washington. These two series apparently
were designed as counterparts: Clark examined the evolution of art, and Jacob
Bronowski in Ascent followed the evolution of science, though each went beyond
these borders. Both were produced by
the BBC and Time-Life, under the tutelage of David Attenborough. This was the first of several series like it
that I avidly absorbed.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Bronowski’ 13 episode series set the template for these
programs: they were personal views (which was Bronowski’s subtitle) and they
depicted scenes around the world as illustrations and enactments. Each host (or in British TV parlance,
presenter) was also the chief author.
Their prejudices as well as insights were inevitably part of their
narratives. Some viewers now would flag race and gender (and species) biases,
and some of what was said on all these programs has since been superseded by
later science and discovery. But to me
at the time, these programs were astonishing in their comprehensiveness. In areas I knew anything about, they went
far beyond textbook summations and embedded information in contexts, then
linked both in narrative if not causal relation. At times watching these I could almost literally feel my brain
neurons firing—I was galvanized (which literally means to be stimulated by
electric current.) </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1Ew7lScWI6FEM3-PNCwNHVZpSvjvU0orUX6020-I1DA90O3mtgGXzMLO6WvCz5f87AwhaRU3TC9Mi1BP5wA9HC8F7SISzZvsUA8zx3h4mcG7hRA60j8idKP2H4S3DDCFzKAct4gH-8FL-5RboIYfbnzhftbGFz0cKbLd00GOzJf7nV7bLEg/s239/images.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="239" data-original-width="210" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1Ew7lScWI6FEM3-PNCwNHVZpSvjvU0orUX6020-I1DA90O3mtgGXzMLO6WvCz5f87AwhaRU3TC9Mi1BP5wA9HC8F7SISzZvsUA8zx3h4mcG7hRA60j8idKP2H4S3DDCFzKAct4gH-8FL-5RboIYfbnzhftbGFz0cKbLd00GOzJf7nV7bLEg/s1600/images.jpg" width="210" /></a></div> Bronowski’s subject was no less than the human story, with
subsets such as one of his scholarly fields, the history and nature of science
as an heroic human activity. The moment that remains in memory is at the end of the 11<sup>th</sup>
episode, in which this otherwise genial, brilliant but conventional older man
in a suit and tie is at the edge of a pond at Auschwitz, where ashes of
crematorium victims—millions of mostly Jews-- were summarily deposited. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> He points out that it is not science that turns people into
numbers: the Nazis did it here. “It was
done by arrogance. It was done by
dogma. It was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute
knowledge, with no tests in reality, this is how they behave.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Then he suddenly steps into the pond, with water up to his
ankles. After noting that many members
of his family died here, he continues: “We have to cure ourselves of the itch
for absolute knowledge and power. We
have to close the distance between the push-button order and the human act.”
And as he speaks his final sentence, he digs out a handful of mud and holds it
up to the camera: “We have to <i>touch</i> people.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> There are times when everything just stops, and the first
time I saw this moment was one of those times.
It was so powerful that in my memory of it, he flings the mud at the
camera (this scene is on YouTube, so I’ve seen this memory was erroneous.) His words should echo in these times as well.</p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE_jRPcwqn0DPx2arXmN2nmhH_pk4LRwNJ_LmQmu-rZ79yhSdPBdJixyC2RUoSnZ719fveIaXQO0M2szFAhFIPbIeaaUSxqXaYgFucpC1FymvhCBh3Pe27Y9kdDqCC9hHcZoNP2QqaOR-XONd3snNWU71aMuLN-IHQFC508vO_mqYW2e3CMA/s400/Connections--James%20Burke.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="400" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE_jRPcwqn0DPx2arXmN2nmhH_pk4LRwNJ_LmQmu-rZ79yhSdPBdJixyC2RUoSnZ719fveIaXQO0M2szFAhFIPbIeaaUSxqXaYgFucpC1FymvhCBh3Pe27Y9kdDqCC9hHcZoNP2QqaOR-XONd3snNWU71aMuLN-IHQFC508vO_mqYW2e3CMA/s320/Connections--James%20Burke.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>In 1979 another British series made it to PBS:<b> <i>Connections</i></b>,
created and hosted by James Burke (in his various leisure suits), explored interconnected events and
technological innovations that led to major changes in societies. As host,
Burke was as unconventional as his history, speaking plainly and with humor,
without the scholarly gravitas of Clark and Bronowski, or any other documentary
host to that point. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> This series (and its followup, <b><i>The Day the Universe</i> <i>Changed</i></b>
in 1986) asserted historical causalities that went beyond the generalizations
and simplicities of the explanations we learned in school. Crucial battles may not have been won just
because of a brilliant leader, but because of a technological advantage, like the
stirrup. Such was Burke’s influence that this kind of thinking has since
become much more frequent.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1GpTH_2gSDOhC9MO4o33ygi60n0naZ0GJzMzwvO3ehxixOumz4w8-o6a-OPSt-R9CtCyeNBvCzHgSaTCYDa-fknk7QPQgydshPATt4kovddZXsIflwvxqMG-y3BpFQoidGVubPQSGwwtTZO7zkYMGeKp10hzClDnPx79_fPZLn-cBsVyJfw/s475/01.jpg" style="clear: right; display: inline; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="290" data-original-width="475" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1GpTH_2gSDOhC9MO4o33ygi60n0naZ0GJzMzwvO3ehxixOumz4w8-o6a-OPSt-R9CtCyeNBvCzHgSaTCYDa-fknk7QPQgydshPATt4kovddZXsIflwvxqMG-y3BpFQoidGVubPQSGwwtTZO7zkYMGeKp10hzClDnPx79_fPZLn-cBsVyJfw/s320/01.jpg" width="320" /></a></p> Burke made several more programs on the <i>Connections</i>
theme but I believe their most important culmination came in perhaps his least
known, three-part series,<b> <i>After the Warming</i> </b>in 1990. In the guise of a citizen of the year 2050,
Burke looks back at global efforts to address the climate crisis, and the
changes resulting in the society of that time.
This early acceptance of the threats posed by global warming is still
fascinating, especially in how it does--and mostly does not--match up with
efforts so far. Within this
framework, Burke examines the determining role of climate and its changes in
history and ordinary life, much as his Connections series did. Lack of this perspective—of how important
climate really is—remains a crucial and perhaps fatal ignorance. This is essential information for our world,
but unfortunately few people have ever seen these programs (though they are
available free on YouTube.) They are
particularly interesting in light of what has and hasn’t happened since they
were made. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The apex of this era came in 1980 with <i><b>Cosmos</b></i>. In 1973 or so, I was managing editor of the
arts at the Boston Phoenix, and interested in expanding our second section
cover beyond the usual arts stories.
Celia Gilbert, our poetry editor, told me about a scientist friend of
her scientist husband who was frustrated because the non-academic pieces he
wrote weren’t getting published, and she asked if I would look at one of his manuscripts for
the Phoenix. I said I sure would. But it never came. I therefore lost the
chance to discover Carl Sagan.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ0uWaPwXbqgNsFk-jsY5OVv77YxVz5POPdcbByHTcDDh8JwGyokpoZIHSBMq-ux_3WueZHutfGFDWe91EfYIco38_Cz8UzgiPq7AKqvs0bj4Obvq82j0dSPEWcFxbc1iOoGHyAwZ2QqJTzeEZ86YeYx4nSGlFryQsM6wxbUL5mKobhdkUZg/s1139/sagan03.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="719" data-original-width="1139" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ0uWaPwXbqgNsFk-jsY5OVv77YxVz5POPdcbByHTcDDh8JwGyokpoZIHSBMq-ux_3WueZHutfGFDWe91EfYIco38_Cz8UzgiPq7AKqvs0bj4Obvq82j0dSPEWcFxbc1iOoGHyAwZ2QqJTzeEZ86YeYx4nSGlFryQsM6wxbUL5mKobhdkUZg/w400-h253/sagan03.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> Carl Sagan’s first experience in the combination of science
and show biz was at the age of four, when he was taken to the famous 1939 New
York Worlds Fair, the World of Tomorrow.
As a scientist he believed in communicating to a general public the nuts
and bolts of current science as well as the wonder scientific exploration
engendered. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> His early efforts culminated in the PBS series <i>Cosmos</i>,
which he presented and co-authored with his wife Ann Druyan and Steven Soter. This 13 part series was produced
and directed by Adrian Malone (among others), who had produced<i> The Ascent of
Man</i>, and again its subtitle was “A Personal Voyage.” Sagan used the
irresistible vehicle of the ultimate starship to explore the cosmos, and human
history in relationship to it. It was
the most popular of these programs, and one of the most watched PBS programs of
all time.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> I remember it most for the vast timeline surrounding the
present, not only of the universe but of humanity, and its persistent, passionate emphasis on the fragility of human
life and knowledge, eventually centered on the threat of nuclear self-destruction.
In common with all these series, there was a lot of human history as context
(the segment about the burning of the library at Alexandria was particularly
potent.) Again, it was enlarging: mind
and soul-expanding.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrNdf6Yv4MkH5-ixeVJtwCytec8SL1SubHSvP2wkE0hIRtberlhAuSF7ndvl4y9ll_S0vr2LTTxB3iIqQkG8gGai93o_1_S73xwylR-S6jTQzX6Ep9Xr_E4Hf4x3OCySVKuTeBk5P-lq3oaEai4lUXPf4EzyBbDb52luGTDd2dz-kBaRTYGw/s1000/jonathan%20miller.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrNdf6Yv4MkH5-ixeVJtwCytec8SL1SubHSvP2wkE0hIRtberlhAuSF7ndvl4y9ll_S0vr2LTTxB3iIqQkG8gGai93o_1_S73xwylR-S6jTQzX6Ep9Xr_E4Hf4x3OCySVKuTeBk5P-lq3oaEai4lUXPf4EzyBbDb52luGTDd2dz-kBaRTYGw/w200-h150/jonathan%20miller.jpg" width="200" /></a></div> Probably just before <i>Cosmos</i> first aired, Jonathan
Miller’s British-made series on medicine, <i><b>The Body in Question</b></i>, made it
to America. I may have seen some
episodes then but remember it also from seeing at least some of it in later
years. Miller was always a stimulating
and entertaining voice, and this series reflects his often contrarian view of
events and their meaning. I especially
remember the program on the medical fad in France for “mesmerism” or hypnotism,
one of many chapters in medical history the medical establishment would like to
forgot.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbYsvdFvceTS1ZHBiroTqctzdXxpiLrFPRCwfLMjMAKvMVFqpAxr5RyuIHWuPNqh1mdNVtWhs4SdT4qsfH7mru_7UA0TOlhZJVUeTeHK6K0RtHxjq0dwT3ue_ixLHCrIn471jI0Ul5pcwyNPWtH3QN8Ph3xm4J-qhJdG7A8yAuF_jnyTQduQ/s432/robert%20hughes.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="327" data-original-width="432" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbYsvdFvceTS1ZHBiroTqctzdXxpiLrFPRCwfLMjMAKvMVFqpAxr5RyuIHWuPNqh1mdNVtWhs4SdT4qsfH7mru_7UA0TOlhZJVUeTeHK6K0RtHxjq0dwT3ue_ixLHCrIn471jI0Ul5pcwyNPWtH3QN8Ph3xm4J-qhJdG7A8yAuF_jnyTQduQ/s320/robert%20hughes.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> I did see every eye-opening episode of<b> <i>The Shock of the
New</i></b>, an 8-part series on the history of modern art by art critic Robert
Hughes, seen in the US in 1981. Hughes
came from Australia, and at this time was based in New York as art critic for
Time Magazine. He was not conventionally photogenic, yet his sun-lined face
with its perpetual scowl demanded attention.
With his preposterous 70s hair humidified into strange shapes, and his
eyes continuously moving across the camera from right to left and back again
like a searchlight, he spoke plainly and yet eloquently. His judgments were constant and
definite. He spoke from locations
(beginning with the base of the Eiffel Tower), and the art of showing painting
on TV had advanced so it was an experience in itself. I learned a lot, including from his presentation on modern
architecture, which proved immediately useful to me as I worked on my shopping
mall book. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRopL1d2lQJrqnb4wHpFf_uY40Tx1B6HIdFDQsB13PkZTz53Q68z09Xu6reeIi8EgaqyNYVhFGfBPFbyXFFTsQtd-g30KkbIyObDFKAGpbQKUiCGM2wWM0foZ0PgtK1j69PjhCYTad_AQ11iMsFpMM4WV_5mhYuwo8o9qYDQse6htKVlL3FQ/s273/images%20(2).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="185" data-original-width="273" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRopL1d2lQJrqnb4wHpFf_uY40Tx1B6HIdFDQsB13PkZTz53Q68z09Xu6reeIi8EgaqyNYVhFGfBPFbyXFFTsQtd-g30KkbIyObDFKAGpbQKUiCGM2wWM0foZ0PgtK1j69PjhCYTad_AQ11iMsFpMM4WV_5mhYuwo8o9qYDQse6htKVlL3FQ/s1600/images%20(2).jpg" width="273" /></a></div> Probably the least remembered of these 1980 series was
playwright Ronald Harwood’s history of western theatre called <i><b>All The
World’s A Stage.</b> </i>Its 13 episodes aired in the UK in 1984 and in the US
probably a year later. It, too, was a
personal view, and was shot on appropriate locations. But its singular
contribution was not only to tell what productions looked like in various times
and places, but to show them—and not just in photos and diagrams, but with real
sets and real actor speaking the words as they had more or less been spoken, sometimes presenting an entire scene or part of a scene.
Though I had a theatre history course in college, this series (which I
taped) proved invaluable, especially when I began to write regularly about
theatrical productions. This series
deserves more respect and renown than it apparently received. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> By the mid-1980s, public television budgets had been
reduced, due in large part to politically motivated cuts in funding by the
federal government and some state governments, and the pinch was felt in
productions. Something similar also happened in Thatcher’s UK. So the era of
these ambitious multi-episode programs was largely over.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> While PBS still produced quality programs, they seldom were
of this particular type: the elaborated vision of a single author. These were television’s version of another
vanished form: the long story presented by the New Yorker in full, in one issue
or more often in several parts, written by John Hershey (<i>Hiroshima</i>) and
Rachel Carson (<i>Silent Spring</i>), Frances Fitzgerald (<i>Fire in The Lake</i>)
and Jonathan Schell <i>(The Fate of the Earth</i>), John McPhee and Janet
Malcolm. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY3pjneUUpu6kjl2KIHBrse6DdgtiqefT27wtZTNuiBYXOqWTzzh6Mt8eBfWXLbZeY2cq93KiMFylJ23W2QSfb161mM1nd8tTa8veFdx3Tvt9oRZvf8wZYAF0SYluAi0ggliEAw7npqyUrTI9C-6r9doOY3qo7zFQZmFPGoEAdC5noUGdFkA/s185/mqdefault.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="171" data-original-width="185" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY3pjneUUpu6kjl2KIHBrse6DdgtiqefT27wtZTNuiBYXOqWTzzh6Mt8eBfWXLbZeY2cq93KiMFylJ23W2QSfb161mM1nd8tTa8veFdx3Tvt9oRZvf8wZYAF0SYluAi0ggliEAw7npqyUrTI9C-6r9doOY3qo7zFQZmFPGoEAdC5noUGdFkA/s1600/mqdefault.jpg" width="185" /></a></div>I can remember one
more such series just as the form was disappearing, eventually to be replaced
by (for example) the Ken Burns histories.
It was called <b><i>Millennium: Tribal Wisdom in the Modern World</i>,</b>
funded largely by the natural cosmetics company The Body Shop, which gets
lavish mention in the series, and once again produced by Adrian Malone. <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This series arrived in the US at the perfect moment: when
Native American writers and activists were transforming the 500<sup>th</sup>
anniversary of Columbus into a classroom on Native history and the especially
relevant traditional knowledge of Indigenous peoples in a time of ecological
crisis.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> It was created and narrated by David-Marbury-Lewis, an
anthropologist who’d lived much of his life among Indigenous peoples in remote
places. He also founded the organization Cultural Survival, which still exists.
Ranging across Africa, Asia, Australia, South and North America, this series
centered on vignettes of actual people in the present, which were created after
producers took “care to ask them for the stories and incidents that they think
are significant, and to elicit their commentaries on them.” </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The vignettes tend to dramatize common human experiences but
within contexts very different from the overdeveloped world. The themes of
connectedness and ecological responsibility as crucial to physical and cultural
survival have only become more critical since this series aired, and seemingly
was forgotten. They are likely to become even more essential as the climate
crisis begins to dominate.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> All of the aforementioned series seen on PBS also produced
books based on them, and I got many of them.
Generally they expanded on ideas and information presented on TV, and
became lasting references. I’ve read and consulted them many times over the
years, so the influence of these programs on my life and my work have been
considerable. </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZjdOEu118NKYSs5txoz4S3bbIgcSe4vR3YS_A8db3dN5aLuV5GFMCVYX2DWob3rXeWHR2Xu6my9HkM7jJ55GS-wCnlbq9XXEkeMOtJ-kO7feiTqQA9XgRcNKOr8X3YmpLnm8Ak6d6iQ7uNLoW643DXtKWF8gcO6lggkp4f3Hf4PAFMjUBLA/s1280/cooke.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZjdOEu118NKYSs5txoz4S3bbIgcSe4vR3YS_A8db3dN5aLuV5GFMCVYX2DWob3rXeWHR2Xu6my9HkM7jJ55GS-wCnlbq9XXEkeMOtJ-kO7feiTqQA9XgRcNKOr8X3YmpLnm8Ak6d6iQ7uNLoW643DXtKWF8gcO6lggkp4f3Hf4PAFMjUBLA/s320/cooke.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alastair Cooke, the long-time host of Masterpiece</td></tr></tbody></table><b><span style="font-size: medium;">A</span></b>long the way I appreciated many of the ongoing PBS umbrella
series. Several brought over plays from the UK (playwright Tom Stoppard used to joke that these plays appeared
there on such television programs as Play of the Month, but when they came to America they
were Masterpiece Theatre and Great Performances.) There were American
productions as well, providing me with most of the professional theatrical
experiences I had, with much better than my usual rush seats in New York. Great Performances was also one of the umbrella shows for dance and music of various kinds. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_jAcWcuSXsow_3f4EXcCjnLiJ0-ThM_7tgNi8JpcOf6h2YaYevS-AfdVFL5nolbRpDSLxCdI-vZX5pmyEvowZPgxVTJe4zlAfo7_j5_3wnlf-W0ncZH0iTdIGTFULiR7fH4scXycfik5McVcRwCF6bqWm7_eiCbAAIJwRH50z8wGKYdUfAQ/s750/1-1517785649.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="526" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_jAcWcuSXsow_3f4EXcCjnLiJ0-ThM_7tgNi8JpcOf6h2YaYevS-AfdVFL5nolbRpDSLxCdI-vZX5pmyEvowZPgxVTJe4zlAfo7_j5_3wnlf-W0ncZH0iTdIGTFULiR7fH4scXycfik5McVcRwCF6bqWm7_eiCbAAIJwRH50z8wGKYdUfAQ/s320/1-1517785649.jpg" width="224" /></a></div>These were also venues for dramatizations of classic (and
not so classic) literature over several episodes, with the capability of more
generously treating the characters, subplots and subtleties of a classic novel
(a Dickens, an Austen) than a two hour movie would. The big hit in that era was the original <i>Upstairs Downstairs.</i><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"> One of the first instances of this that I recall was the
miniseries version of Thomas Hardy’s <i>Jude the Obscure.</i> This portrait of a woeful working class
young man with aspirations to education and higher things who was diverted and
ultimately destroyed by a tragic marriage, scared me to death in my early
20s. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Other PBS umbrella programs presented various biographies,
histories, exposes, political analyses. PBS excelled in biography (often done by independent filmmakers) and explanatory journalism. Their nature documentaries mostly suffered from the drawbacks of the genre: emphasis on conflict, action, pretty pictures, superficial narrative. I learned less from these than other types of programs, though there were exceptions.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> Their explanatory programs on science could be breathtaking. In perhaps the early 80s or even the late 70s I vividly recall
seeing a program (perhaps a Nova or a stand-alone) that went back and forth
between new scientific discoveries in physics of the very large (black holes, etc.) and
the very small (quarks, etc.) The
program described relativity and quantum physics, the four fundamental forces
(gravity, the electromagnetic force and the strong force and the weak force
within the atom) and the struggle to find the “grand unified theory” of how
they all interrelate. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibzcOHdAi4ByvMVIlzdzadojiiepR4hco9InTFDUcSvMYotozDDjEwUcrV_UtOsCW2W6kHYjkyAa2_e_P2Yq0MKSCKP8geuYjZcqnLqmpXSVRVhSm7mDnGXHpnxWc6_S0LO96SYE0SmJNk18vKDaT_FaGfEft4DWVCF9DElQ5ChL5aaYygUQ/s1200/YLnFzPz-asset-mezzanine-16x9-qHliuxi.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="1200" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibzcOHdAi4ByvMVIlzdzadojiiepR4hco9InTFDUcSvMYotozDDjEwUcrV_UtOsCW2W6kHYjkyAa2_e_P2Yq0MKSCKP8geuYjZcqnLqmpXSVRVhSm7mDnGXHpnxWc6_S0LO96SYE0SmJNk18vKDaT_FaGfEft4DWVCF9DElQ5ChL5aaYygUQ/s320/YLnFzPz-asset-mezzanine-16x9-qHliuxi.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> The climax of the program was the revelation of the one scientist who might yet put it all together. He was Stephen Hawking, then unknown to
the general public (years before his bestselling book), or at least to me.
Most of what this program covered was new to me, and as I struggled to
keep it all straight and deal with my increasing wonder, I was confronted with
my first glimpse of a man twisted by disease (ALS) who might hold the
answer. This was before Hawking got his
voice synthesizer, so I heard only the strange sounds he could make,
comprehensible (the program said) only to a few. It was an amazing moment.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This program was a vivid introduction that allowed me to
read further and more widely in related areas with some confidence, which eventually
led to reviewing some new books covering some of these subjects for the general reader. </p><p class="MsoNormal">These were just some of the ways that PBS was a meaningful part of my life. This relationship continued beyond the 1980s and 90s, into the new century. In my next post I isolate on one figure whose PBS shows were especially important to me over those decades: Bill Moyers. This TV and Me series concludes next time. </p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-86066516110339056772023-08-09T22:48:00.005-07:002023-08-29T02:29:19.630-07:00TV and Me: Rescues<p><i> TV and I grew up together. This is our story. Latest in a <a href="http://dreamingup.blogspot.com/search/label/TV%20and%20Me">series.</a></i></p><p class="MsoNormal">TV and I had grown up together, and then grown apart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But television as I knew it continued to
contribute to my life, though in more sporadic and selective ways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> When the alternative weekly I edited—Newsworks in Washington
D.C.—folded in 1976, I returned to Greensburg to chill out and plot my next
move. I was soon offered a job as an
editor at the Village Voice in New York, but just before that deal was
completed, the Voice was sold and all hiring cancelled. So I turned to reviving my magazine writing,
as well as other writing.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvHAp7P9Ds9jWttNKajix3E1Av1k6m6TZo7BjVJiaY3XazhJhP7anaTQyj9FVWMX7Uq17t1DQCqeNEDh_LU3QbWOrcd5QXNC167tTSSLrxBcgswqPBO9IJTdia0QRNdAAyHRYE2d6TQ6qhAgvaFe4VI7kh5MjNAkWVyw38iT8OBP9nyy8Fjg/s900/josiah-bartlet.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="900" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvHAp7P9Ds9jWttNKajix3E1Av1k6m6TZo7BjVJiaY3XazhJhP7anaTQyj9FVWMX7Uq17t1DQCqeNEDh_LU3QbWOrcd5QXNC167tTSSLrxBcgswqPBO9IJTdia0QRNdAAyHRYE2d6TQ6qhAgvaFe4VI7kh5MjNAkWVyw38iT8OBP9nyy8Fjg/s320/josiah-bartlet.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Which in the present context is all to say that I had a lot
more time for television. This would not be the first or last period of my life when I
needed some rescue provided by books, movies and TV, but it was acute in those
years of “inexpensive isolation” (as I later described them), when after a
period of uncompensated writing and searching for an agent, an article led to
the protracted effort to get a book contract based on it, followed by the
research, writing and then re-writing, and all the elation and trauma
surrounding the fraught odyssey of its publication and its aftermath—a period that extended
through most of the 1980s. I had family and friends and something of a social
life, but otherwise the rhythms of my life and identity were disrupted to the
point of shapelessness, and I often felt lost and bereft.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> What kind of rescue did TV provide? It certainly offered the mind-numbing kind
in abundance but I valued other, more positive, active and specific
contributions, and in this last sections of this series, I want to acknowledge
some of them. </p> <b><span style="font-size: medium;">S</span></b>ome forms are pretty familiar to others: the TV shows or
series that create an alternative world to painful aspects of the real
one. So I share with many the need and
gratitude for <i>M*A*S*H</i> during the Vietnam war, and <i>The West Wing</i>
during the Bush/Cheney years. In a less specific sense, <i>Star Trek</i> served
this function for many over the years, and it did so for me.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij0kd-v4ayj-ozXFyywS22Jm8LHOsJLE-05cM-18hiRAqyySALMp4gLfyvnc2s-PzPXNcouQ6qP_mQnhM0VFVQH_yjwPsXTgKoCWXZjB_cI_0VUoPfIEEiZh1sx4cHrfIVYre6Uiq5J3j7KffpH2gdcs1JPWGIZEEXSjlMpseQyleAAi3l5g/s500/next%20gen03.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="500" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij0kd-v4ayj-ozXFyywS22Jm8LHOsJLE-05cM-18hiRAqyySALMp4gLfyvnc2s-PzPXNcouQ6qP_mQnhM0VFVQH_yjwPsXTgKoCWXZjB_cI_0VUoPfIEEiZh1sx4cHrfIVYre6Uiq5J3j7KffpH2gdcs1JPWGIZEEXSjlMpseQyleAAi3l5g/s320/next%20gen03.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> Star Trek modeled the soul of a better future, especially in
its most globally popular series, <i>Star Trek: The Next Generation</i>
(1987-94.) It was personal nourishment
and a beacon to future possibilities: not in terms of technology but attitude, ethics, community and its expansive defining and honoring of life to be respected . <div><br /></div><div>Another
series of the early 90s that encompassed new possibilities was <i>Northern
Exposure</i> (which in 1990 ran at the same time as its nightmare side, the
unforgettable first season of <i>Twin Peaks</i>.)<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1enwzXKTY84ta1Qh2CHllbYjnYaFPWJTkcK43bzWITVkQCVzdOjd1vPn670qhzjygKKi5_FKgqWyAUT5Ts0fyKNGayAa3OSYq70tS_zL9atoLCx2YnTc5IAlz3IjKGQGMxPONjPDkA5nIaIME-9_e3JsPSuIxCfN20-G9sm8QoJV94IzDpA/s1108/northern-exposure-1108x0-c-default.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="831" data-original-width="1108" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1enwzXKTY84ta1Qh2CHllbYjnYaFPWJTkcK43bzWITVkQCVzdOjd1vPn670qhzjygKKi5_FKgqWyAUT5Ts0fyKNGayAa3OSYq70tS_zL9atoLCx2YnTc5IAlz3IjKGQGMxPONjPDkA5nIaIME-9_e3JsPSuIxCfN20-G9sm8QoJV94IzDpA/s320/northern-exposure-1108x0-c-default.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <i>Northern Exposure’s</i> witty contributions include
taking seriously the Indigenous worldview in today’s society, which was also a
concern in fiction by Native and First Peoples authors, as well as a few films,
especially surrounding the 500<sup>th</sup> anniversary of Columbus in
1992. There were Jungian notions in
Northern Exposure as well, as there were in The Next Generation. And since by this time I was building a new
life in Pittsburgh, and deeply interested in contemporary Native American views
and Jungian psychology, these felt like synchronous elements of these
dialogues. But even before this, I
responded to common elements in these programs: intelligence and a sense of
wonder in the stories, and articulate characters who respected each other.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Also in the late 80s and early 90s, I found the series <i>Thirtysomething</i>
more than just entertaining and generally informative on what my generation was
going through. For much of that time I
was employed as a senior writing at an editorial firm with business and
government clients, which was my first (and last) experience in that kind of
organization. It turned out I learned
more about what I was experiencing from the advertising firm portrayed in <i>Thirtysomething</i>
than any other source.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOipVi61eJ5jv3ZGYq5ic4dQnQrDxOo1F40MQImjzybjKCbAIAXOgoG-gHts1iiXadEQJVDNrgH2HzB8wwdLekvfZ5Hb98Qic8msuPyuDnezbqoH9L5seRjW2x4e6BVdOsjXi5jKYpgfODp0GG0_77Awze398yemqHVZFtHR0-eBqUcfG1Ag/s1024/cavett.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="668" data-original-width="1024" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOipVi61eJ5jv3ZGYq5ic4dQnQrDxOo1F40MQImjzybjKCbAIAXOgoG-gHts1iiXadEQJVDNrgH2HzB8wwdLekvfZ5Hb98Qic8msuPyuDnezbqoH9L5seRjW2x4e6BVdOsjXi5jKYpgfODp0GG0_77Awze398yemqHVZFtHR0-eBqUcfG1Ag/s320/cavett.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> But other forms of TV rescue were more personal, more linked
to my circumstances in a time and a place. This was most acutely true in those
late 70s and 80s in Greensburg. I
suspect others have shared these experiences, at different times and places,
and with different television. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Most of my television viewing continued to be late at night.
I still watched talk shows. The Dick
Cavett Show was a valued, even essential oasis while it lasted, but it was
ended in 1975. Tom Snyder’s quixotic
Tomorrow Show was still on NBC in the early 80s before it too disappeared. Watching other talk shows was like attending
old rituals, comforting in a way but often empty. However, anything approaching
intelligent or even amusing conversation was welcome. </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibV0nVjNEXcschruodun6m8tB4BqtGdqKKSUWgvNVeDcDKfx-YMxrDM_4UUhKc2v3I82eDeViOQ-DEJ5G89hnIzLbcZTEBds0c4AYqTzbJeLsrI4UzLkNKHIiZFuKiLBBpR_vkXgSBrkaPdfmfiTKFa9I2loUepWjPZbpu-P3glX8Jg6Ot7Q/s300/Paul-McCartney-Johnny-Carson-Birthday-Cake-10-23-84-300x265-1.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="265" data-original-width="300" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibV0nVjNEXcschruodun6m8tB4BqtGdqKKSUWgvNVeDcDKfx-YMxrDM_4UUhKc2v3I82eDeViOQ-DEJ5G89hnIzLbcZTEBds0c4AYqTzbJeLsrI4UzLkNKHIiZFuKiLBBpR_vkXgSBrkaPdfmfiTKFa9I2loUepWjPZbpu-P3glX8Jg6Ot7Q/s1600/Paul-McCartney-Johnny-Carson-Birthday-Cake-10-23-84-300x265-1.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paul McCartney brings Johnny a birthday cake</td></tr></tbody></table>I should however say a few words about Johnny Carson’s
Tonight Show, which I never watched regularly but saw often enough over the
years, especially when Steve Allen and Dick Cavett weren’t on the air, or I
would catch some of it tuning in early for David Letterman. Carson’s Tonight Show opening was highly
ritualized, his repeated bits became ritualized and the audience had their
parts in them. Eventually his popularity made the show an American ritual.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> For a long while
his success puzzled me. I first watched
him on his afternoon show<i>, Who Do You Trust?,</i> and though he was a
compelling presence, it was hard to say why: basically he was a skinny guy who
seemed to be restraining himself from telling dirty jokes. On the Tonight Show
he shamelessly adapted bits and characters that Steve Allen, Ernie Kovacs and
Jonathan Winters had originated, but he made them his own. As he relaxed into his silver-haired years,
he assumed a mastery over that show and its environment. Within its ritualized context, he added the
human element, especially when he knew his guests. And he could be funny.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB7JWssTTUjEoNgFPR3rdn4P30PyfRQnK-u3tU1T74XD1qlUSFDJYJLMO1LMdLi9DhMHFcLFN2KpfGu4QuzEJX3Y_tspbpJBe9vehHj0VWfohr53sbLTCpKZSry8tnjwflcCivxpLYxGZOHDUcbsHyE3FCPvD5upZ32XjEy1Swo5xk_wIM6g/s960/3a3b77c699384a5a51e8a5d10a0afa64.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="951" data-original-width="960" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB7JWssTTUjEoNgFPR3rdn4P30PyfRQnK-u3tU1T74XD1qlUSFDJYJLMO1LMdLi9DhMHFcLFN2KpfGu4QuzEJX3Y_tspbpJBe9vehHj0VWfohr53sbLTCpKZSry8tnjwflcCivxpLYxGZOHDUcbsHyE3FCPvD5upZ32XjEy1Swo5xk_wIM6g/s320/3a3b77c699384a5a51e8a5d10a0afa64.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> Carson was said to be painfully shy and so socially awkward
that he avoided social events. But he
found elements that worked for him, particularly his adaptation of the reaction
take that he freely admitted he learned from Jack Benny. There was however an earnestness about him
that appealed to me—the impression that he was a serious person, if not as
intellectual as Cavett or Steve Allen.
He also seemed to be without prejudices, and seldom belittled his
guests. He seemed a generous, decent
man who knew he was limited, and pushed against his limits, but not too
hard. The audience at home was part of
all the ritual, and they saw themselves in Johnny Carson.</div><div><br /></div><div>But who was going to replace Johnny Carson when he retired, as he said as the 70s ended? Thanks to my friend Mike Shain, I attended an NBC dinner with all their executive arrayed at the head table, including the head honcho Fred Silverman. The evening's entertainment was a hot new comedian named David Letterman. I suggested to Michael that this was his audition for the Tonight Show. </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl5DFuogh6GeIkL0Gt7fzpFix49Sbql4GXdbZW5m7H91gAgP2ydNscfAN8z8D7IZyJgmW5PCZ2pFDpKZBXqIws6i_anCtV6EddS1PLIJ3rXpKmtHuSmb9oOV0YRVU1BaUlRMEBqjmE2H4KDqMJ7P9vtanB31XlBPj8b4Qeft85q4JvPfI3xA/s260/Jerry_Lewis_with_David_Letterman.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="177" data-original-width="260" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl5DFuogh6GeIkL0Gt7fzpFix49Sbql4GXdbZW5m7H91gAgP2ydNscfAN8z8D7IZyJgmW5PCZ2pFDpKZBXqIws6i_anCtV6EddS1PLIJ3rXpKmtHuSmb9oOV0YRVU1BaUlRMEBqjmE2H4KDqMJ7P9vtanB31XlBPj8b4Qeft85q4JvPfI3xA/s1600/Jerry_Lewis_with_David_Letterman.jpg" width="260" /></a></div> I turned out to be right, sort of. Carson didn't retire that time, so Letterman scored a morning talk show and then Late Night with David Letterman on NBC in 1982, following Carson. It became a sensation. I watched it every night. Sure, once again a lot of the bits were familiar from Steve Allen, but Letterman had something extra: insolence. His Top Ten Lists were some of the funniest writing on TV. Eventually, Letterman would soften his image for the Late Show on CBS (when he was passed over for the Tonight Show in 1992) and bested Johnny Carson's record for the most late night hosting appearances. <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqMUrXLJpFZg6wooO70iBOoT3cIRkJ_DdcKycnEPoJhckAg_f9sc3KREstL5glpxQFirwNDXi1MO-h2mhi7Ff-Kbq8QhwweiwYChVdpbahF9KKz_pvvHnXQx4dpWhzkELrGJf0y8go2zE2Dg5iH-g34PMODk89IO8GJKff_WDyJj-xTobBxQ/s2048/arsenio02.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1360" data-original-width="2048" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqMUrXLJpFZg6wooO70iBOoT3cIRkJ_DdcKycnEPoJhckAg_f9sc3KREstL5glpxQFirwNDXi1MO-h2mhi7Ff-Kbq8QhwweiwYChVdpbahF9KKz_pvvHnXQx4dpWhzkELrGJf0y8go2zE2Dg5iH-g34PMODk89IO8GJKff_WDyJj-xTobBxQ/s320/arsenio02.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Magic Johnson on Arsenio Hall Show</td></tr></tbody></table> As for other talk shows, they had their moments. Arsenio Hall had a good run with his
(1989-1994), and I watched it now and again for several years.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> I continued to watch movies, of course: on TCM and AMC, and
HBO and whatever other premium channels were part of the package, like TMC.
What was new were the late night reruns, not locally syndicated but through
networks. So I watched old episodes of <i>Magnum
P.I., Kojak</i> and <i>Baretta</i>, shows I hadn’t watched (and didn’t watch)
in prime time. I knew I was scraping
the bottom for solace here, and I wasn’t grabbing role models (although the
catchphrases “Who loves ya, baby?” “And that’s the name of that tune,” were
catchy) but they gave me the quicker rhythms, personality and style that real
life wasn’t providing. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiabGi709C8E8xYsZuy18awmokHHQE0exVfIunqTrJxS2bAiATkcD27xzWwpZ5F4kL-rFPgI0ZnopXIBdk27GhC6Gk5ge9dexbiAK0J4jWBJ0WEKs6DE-H88Rdr7X_FOb1niNdDG_jrQRoxCfyfVXW1u7IrWPFd0RzlN2U-ukK-KFk-zbGzjQ/s1280/aaalou%20grant.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiabGi709C8E8xYsZuy18awmokHHQE0exVfIunqTrJxS2bAiATkcD27xzWwpZ5F4kL-rFPgI0ZnopXIBdk27GhC6Gk5ge9dexbiAK0J4jWBJ0WEKs6DE-H88Rdr7X_FOb1niNdDG_jrQRoxCfyfVXW1u7IrWPFd0RzlN2U-ukK-KFk-zbGzjQ/s320/aaalou%20grant.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Early in my exile I was devoted to the <i>Lou Grant</i> series starring Ed Asner. I'd watched the Mary Tyler Moore Show of course--and even happened to be in downtown Minneapolis at the precise moment she was filming new inserts for the introductory montage of the show. I watched her walk by in her brown trenchcoat. It was my first time in Minneapolis and it might have been hers as well. Considered a spinoff, <i>Lou Grant</i> retained some of the humor but was basically a serious series about newspaper reporters and the social issues they confronted in their stories. This was my neighborhood in a way, and I loved entering their world. Once again, Monday nights at 10 p.m. were sacred.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> At a later point, the cable channel A&E was alternating
late night episodes of <i>The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes </i>series starring
Jeremy Brett (from Granada TV in the UK) with another UK series, <i>Lovejoy</i>,
a comedy/drama about an antique dealer—a “divvy” who can divine the
authenticity of an item-- who solves antique-related crimes, often in
self-defense. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8PjknUb1nLsTliVIbGxgfuwO7Dn64506s_QTLR2GpEm4V-BQkUnbV-KlJIqg0mCG7fS-VXEjBe_y3TGAp36GyJrJlygywdnEXEwl1vPM-vyPyHN5dKYTAUSdlZfCal5AUCulllTqNdInrZt6knuaTKiY_nJldEH_YOYNGNv3ZznJmAGOwhQ/s1440/lovejoy02.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1440" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8PjknUb1nLsTliVIbGxgfuwO7Dn64506s_QTLR2GpEm4V-BQkUnbV-KlJIqg0mCG7fS-VXEjBe_y3TGAp36GyJrJlygywdnEXEwl1vPM-vyPyHN5dKYTAUSdlZfCal5AUCulllTqNdInrZt6knuaTKiY_nJldEH_YOYNGNv3ZznJmAGOwhQ/w200-h150/lovejoy02.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>A&E was the first to show Lovejoy in the US, while the
Sherlock Holmes series premiered on PBS before A&E. I might have seen it on
PBS but like the original Star Trek and the aforementioned series, seeing it
every night (or several nights a week) gave it a stronger, more consistent
presence. When I was watching these, I
was most fascinated with Lovejoy: the rogue and outcast who always finds a way
to right a wrong, or at least outfox the more unscrupulous. <div><br /></div><div> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4rvdjFzO_wP75M-E9vNz43iwxHDZaZtAa4ziVlAApSNfXBDuV_M-Y_YugKgIMrFJ248kIo9vkL-d4KR7ieiGWdwVh4oIQtle4YElH6aDeJdGdPNOgLMHzk4HtRYZgjZVKbA4Pst-QXzag6NcqgxuvauhNPNOLJfwWgu97UohAV5EQhc6aWQ/s581/brett04.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="581" data-original-width="479" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4rvdjFzO_wP75M-E9vNz43iwxHDZaZtAa4ziVlAApSNfXBDuV_M-Y_YugKgIMrFJ248kIo9vkL-d4KR7ieiGWdwVh4oIQtle4YElH6aDeJdGdPNOgLMHzk4HtRYZgjZVKbA4Pst-QXzag6NcqgxuvauhNPNOLJfwWgu97UohAV5EQhc6aWQ/s320/brett04.jpg" width="264" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Watson (Hardwick) and Holmes (Brett)</td></tr></tbody></table>I enjoyed the Jeremy Brett series on A&E, but it was
seeing these stories uninterrupted on DVD in more recent years that turned me
into an addict. I’ve seen episodes of
the first and second seasons literally dozens of times. The writing and
production are generally satisfying, the guest actors range from competent to
brilliant, regulars like David Burke (series 1) and Edward Hardwick
(thereafter) as Watson, and Colin Jeavors as Inspector Lestrade were
entertaining, but it is Brett that keeps me coming back. <p></p><p class="MsoNormal">His Holmes is
magnetic (and occasionally frenetic) as well as nuanced and complex. At times
Brett plays him with what Hardwick calls “Edwardian acting,” the high style of
early 20<sup>th</sup> century theatre, a brilliant notion even historically for
the advanced detective of the late 19<sup>th</sup> century, for whom deduction
was a performance. Even when I know the
story, even the lines and the moves, it’s a joy to revisit Brett’s
Sherlock. I also love the men’s
clothes—the long coats, the tweeds with matching caps. Brett's portrayal of an intense, mercurial and edgy Holmes set the template for Benedict Cumberbatch in the BBC modern times <i>Sherlock</i>
series and Jonny Miller in the CBS modern times <i>Elementary</i> series. I admire both of those shows but for me Brett’s original
period series is the one I return to repeatedly. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhJLYXeKxVpRaXZfpmXbh0IXvpz2yAJopOMj8O9NviVIWzf5A_2J-gjJ1JG_XKDSchEfGb3B_bPSsTfYCM2TCRKxZJRyZzEpjMwqE1FStX80d1XFnIxFoHViaufX8Cb6FinwgOZy9y7XkbnQ9ydFqugbdQzHIja2G3zuvJqC0lOnZzMgDB-w/s640/lovejoy01.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhJLYXeKxVpRaXZfpmXbh0IXvpz2yAJopOMj8O9NviVIWzf5A_2J-gjJ1JG_XKDSchEfGb3B_bPSsTfYCM2TCRKxZJRyZzEpjMwqE1FStX80d1XFnIxFoHViaufX8Cb6FinwgOZy9y7XkbnQ9ydFqugbdQzHIja2G3zuvJqC0lOnZzMgDB-w/s320/lovejoy01.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>While Brett’s style remains a chief attraction, at the time
I gravitated more to Ian McShane as Lovejoy on A&E (though on DVD many
Lovejoy episodes are enjoyable but they aren’t as consistent as Brett’s
Holmes.) Lovejoy also affected my style by favoring t-shirts with suit jackets
(years before <i>Miami Vice</i> changed everything with their ultra-slick
ensembles.) Again, this attraction was as much aural (the way they spoke—even
their diction) as visual. These late
night forays added some buoyancy to my days.</div><div><br /></div><div> The Bravo network transmitted at least a few programs from UK interview and documentary series, "The South Bank Show." The host and interviewer was Melvyn Bragg. US television had nobody quite like him--stylish, quietly affable and erudite, yet comfortable letting his guests talk. I got the sense that he was talking with equals--people whose work he understood. He interviewed some controversial political figures, but mostly stars of entertainment and the arts, especially theatre. I remember specifically a couple of programs he did with Laurence Olivier, which I taped and watched a number of times. This version of The South Bank Show was produced from 1978 to 2010. It was revived on a different platform in 2012, though it is scheduled to end in 2023. <br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> I remember two other shows from the UK that were introduced on
late night television in the US, this time by our PBS station, WQED in
Pittsburgh. Both I believe were on late
at night once a week.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWTyg4Ni2yFnC3vxm5XXmpRAxX0iQx5jN311Z11HZGue-4IFciPeifLer7VAYjryHhr52XFnmHq1ZyocTV_IrpDiv-EZ216r8p4tyjXx00mkIjInmgW0w_wZIE5hQPb-8vQrzCwBCwH52_XXcLB6zgXvQYmNfBKpkFqwnUJIRTwSADMtWkgw/s1200/hitch01.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWTyg4Ni2yFnC3vxm5XXmpRAxX0iQx5jN311Z11HZGue-4IFciPeifLer7VAYjryHhr52XFnmHq1ZyocTV_IrpDiv-EZ216r8p4tyjXx00mkIjInmgW0w_wZIE5hQPb-8vQrzCwBCwH52_XXcLB6zgXvQYmNfBKpkFqwnUJIRTwSADMtWkgw/w320-h180/hitch01.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> The <i>Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy</i> came into my
world unheralded, sneaking in very late on what I remember as Sunday
night. PBS apparently re-edited the
original six episodes from the BBC into seven half- hour programs. I had no idea of the history of this Douglas
Adams project in the UK: a novel, a radio series, a stage show and an LP,
before this TV series had first aired in England two years before. The books were yet to come. <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So I was a complete innocent--I didn’t know what would
happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the computer Deep Thought
was ready to answer the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything,
I didn’t know what it would be—I had to wait until the next episode.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were wonders after wonders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAset5PXAKoFn3oAbruRqBkLFa224eZ4gmOKoVRdifDBcHCJV8ljemAzfX-qQHDtcdXlQvXwUnsVjHKOo_8RT1FJqW7P2NVOyBimfU_aKYnnLfz0Zk2GzBFioAadM4wAnytIvk0U7AWH5BG1qiyTtswOb3PPjqxO9QKlaHlu3bocCBJldgxw/s640/hitch04.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="640" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAset5PXAKoFn3oAbruRqBkLFa224eZ4gmOKoVRdifDBcHCJV8ljemAzfX-qQHDtcdXlQvXwUnsVjHKOo_8RT1FJqW7P2NVOyBimfU_aKYnnLfz0Zk2GzBFioAadM4wAnytIvk0U7AWH5BG1qiyTtswOb3PPjqxO9QKlaHlu3bocCBJldgxw/s320/hitch04.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>The production was a bit clunky but forgivable in such an
imaginative romp, as if Star Trek had married Monty Python. The
sets were only slightly above Captain Video level, but that became part of the
charm. The animated interpolations were
priceless, and overall, the wit was astonishing and most importantly to me,
nourishing. One of the things I needed from these shows was that their effect,
their style and worldview would linger for as long as possible, until lost in
the morass and vocabulary of everyday life.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Speaking of Monty Python, their Flying Circus series was
introduced on PBS in the 70s, and though I watched episodes when I ran into
them, I was for some reason never really a big fan. They were funny, and they weren’t.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5tLKLLKKm08TP6h1mEtbSnY5ynXn15fbSpSP7v7e19kJIe5FrjycUY_xo9JX_SD9L1pYnf2STHFXDzijHMBzfj1vcMDEnAcWPnQGtS7GnewjJAWADs4mRmhaNmL1ohNyt_7y13rdrnstXzid9EOw9PpODaTbh40Z0IyiKU__iGlt136AKyw/s640/love%20of%20chair.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5tLKLLKKm08TP6h1mEtbSnY5ynXn15fbSpSP7v7e19kJIe5FrjycUY_xo9JX_SD9L1pYnf2STHFXDzijHMBzfj1vcMDEnAcWPnQGtS7GnewjJAWADs4mRmhaNmL1ohNyt_7y13rdrnstXzid9EOw9PpODaTbh40Z0IyiKU__iGlt136AKyw/w200-h150/love%20of%20chair.jpg" width="200" /></a></div> I was however a fan of a few PBS shows ostensibly for
children, mostly for their sly humor. I
caught a few minutes of <i>Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood</i> (and later watched a
day’s filming and met Mr. Rogers himself) and <i>Sesame Street</i> here and
there, but in the early 70s I tuned in as often as I could to <i>The Electric
Company</i> (the original one, with Rita Moreno and a young Morgan Freeman as
Easy Reader) and later to <i>Mathnet</i>, partly because in both there was usually
a layer of subtle but hilarious humor for adults.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Mathnet was
essentially a parody of Dragnet, and once made an elaborate inside joke about <i>Citizen
Kane</i>. The Electric Company
included a daily parody of soap operas, “Love of Chair,” in which (as with most
soap operas) almost nothing happened.
Each segment ended with the question, “And what about Naomi?” with the
quintessential organ sting. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaNN6CBwPsVwEbS6HDsG4Tjn3uQRwYvLgw2mnvrzOE2vm7Y9cjBGFuk1S_wTm8d3UPE9XQOKrfholy7h6k1TyyFxxj8p-lZm92cvN_yvQCNoDSIYa4jejC0idOExrJsGYsTBvQELieAW-AdR36u-esdgY8P_s0Xgnk5qbN_jFLX7MkZEA7QA/s988/25eee24326c12011fa10093eebb8f648-1200x628.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="624" data-original-width="988" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaNN6CBwPsVwEbS6HDsG4Tjn3uQRwYvLgw2mnvrzOE2vm7Y9cjBGFuk1S_wTm8d3UPE9XQOKrfholy7h6k1TyyFxxj8p-lZm92cvN_yvQCNoDSIYa4jejC0idOExrJsGYsTBvQELieAW-AdR36u-esdgY8P_s0Xgnk5qbN_jFLX7MkZEA7QA/s320/25eee24326c12011fa10093eebb8f648-1200x628.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>A few years before A Hitchhiker’s Guide appeared, another
BBC series began appearing late at night: the (then) latest incarnation of <i>Doctor Who</i>
with the eccentric, enigmatic but magnetic Tom Baker as the Doctor. It appeared unheralded on the Pittsburgh PBS
station WQED. I was blown away by it---after pretty much memorizing all
the episodes of Star Trek made in the 60s, I was hungry for another sci-fi
world. But I don’t remember it as being
on for very long.<p></p>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAqrBvGa9SjowxcuPMkMwbbU0D0v2b2hT5XoDLT82vQGVncFw6hdN8IlQKteOlEs78w3Hn8rMtVCwcd7yJJy9xB7HUix4BDGkT8BWQGrLhZsCvYk3EJnitmxiPKA24ML0sq52xxO8XQwx-p4OX68ZTosiy07wGptvJh_Ixapa7rK3vGb1C3A/s1065/davison%20who03.jpg" style="clear: right; display: inline; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1065" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAqrBvGa9SjowxcuPMkMwbbU0D0v2b2hT5XoDLT82vQGVncFw6hdN8IlQKteOlEs78w3Hn8rMtVCwcd7yJJy9xB7HUix4BDGkT8BWQGrLhZsCvYk3EJnitmxiPKA24ML0sq52xxO8XQwx-p4OX68ZTosiy07wGptvJh_Ixapa7rK3vGb1C3A/s320/davison%20who03.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Peter Davison was the Fifth Doctor.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> It was later that I got the opportunity to saturate myself
in the Whovian universe. Back when WQED
was an NET educational channel, it farmed out some instructional programs to
its UHF subsidiary WQEX, channel 16.
But as mentioned previously, cable TV gave the UHF channels with a
weaker signal a level playing field and new life. So in the 1980s, WQEX remade itself as the spunky “Sweet Little
Sixteen,” with a visibly youthful on air presence, and a slate of offbeat
syndicated programs. Its first and most
enduring hit was <i>Doctor Who</i>. QEX promoted it with a Pittsburgh-based
Doctor Who convention, and most importantly, ran an episode every day. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggmBLTeNyNBsYf2rZktZjGhj0DWxoxb3uVRP7PN0M8ngExGXUEEIpsUIbXDMM-L24ryP6wdv5929pLC5x0wvPenERFVV7lKeMl-t-of0rkeZLPkl56D6mTKR7_YahqtrW3ZnQaZnKXkfq1OueQjIW6tUGvZ2o-bITyXW8mNz6j8WwNm7dVlQ/s800/dr_who_the_stones_of_blood_2.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="524" data-original-width="800" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggmBLTeNyNBsYf2rZktZjGhj0DWxoxb3uVRP7PN0M8ngExGXUEEIpsUIbXDMM-L24ryP6wdv5929pLC5x0wvPenERFVV7lKeMl-t-of0rkeZLPkl56D6mTKR7_YahqtrW3ZnQaZnKXkfq1OueQjIW6tUGvZ2o-bITyXW8mNz6j8WwNm7dVlQ/s320/dr_who_the_stones_of_blood_2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>WQEX started with the Tom Baker episodes—seven seasons
worth in the late 70s to early 80s. As everyone must know by now, the Doctor is a Time Lord who travels in a TARDIS disguised as a 1950s London police box. He usually travels with one or more companions, often young women. Every so often the Doctor “regenerates” and
takes on a new appearance and personality so there had actually been three
Doctors with different actors before Tom Baker and at that point in the late 1980s, two more
after him. <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-DdPuOJblC-HbNLoixf4EzsQXvF-9qG5mqzIJAE8BTQB6sxo-QY6yOwvRef4g41REGSeZuH6ZTRFS7N5200YCQ28kob_7KRbMGgYAsKbrRlYkXszCwiM3JDRdN_iYwwcEyEhTW0QNvpK8gGGhuBy7yGfiSo_Cc-vIVxdYsvV4x6UzqstAkQ/s900/doctor-who-romana-1-c972447.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="654" data-original-width="900" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-DdPuOJblC-HbNLoixf4EzsQXvF-9qG5mqzIJAE8BTQB6sxo-QY6yOwvRef4g41REGSeZuH6ZTRFS7N5200YCQ28kob_7KRbMGgYAsKbrRlYkXszCwiM3JDRdN_iYwwcEyEhTW0QNvpK8gGGhuBy7yGfiSo_Cc-vIVxdYsvV4x6UzqstAkQ/s320/doctor-who-romana-1-c972447.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Doctor Who was so popular
with the QEX audience that, apart from encouraging the running of a raft of
other old BBC shows (some of them dubious) the station acquired the rights to
show all the existing episodes from past Doctors, and eventually each new
episode as seen in the UK until the series went into hibernation in 1989.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> I don’t know how many other US stations did this but I doubt
there were many. I was probably among
the few in the US who had the opportunity to see all surviving episodes of <i>Doctor
Who</i>, from its first in November 1963, through the Tom Baker stories and beyond them to the Peter Davison and Colin Baker episodes and
eventually the last ones with Sylvester McCoy in 1989. There was no more <i>Doctor Who</i> after that until the series was reimagined and restarted
in 2005, though religiously keeping continuity. Eventually these "classic" episodes became available to US viewers through the BBC
cable and streaming channels.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiphhSbVEK7z8ygsyf-qwa6mG1nZJOVGPLCAq76PUcMDWSHN7H1U_PPByotRuEhswQswAPAokrp_wTN8gZbePGkWCxEBVKIzw0BxntbSNEIlyZeMI5Exq3Hgf3DwhCVUpDaOU3izk6qlpVQVcM-PUmXUJFRDIajWXB2xysdzymudQa5GeG1yw/s1500/doctor-who-tom-baker-season-18-1552995273.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiphhSbVEK7z8ygsyf-qwa6mG1nZJOVGPLCAq76PUcMDWSHN7H1U_PPByotRuEhswQswAPAokrp_wTN8gZbePGkWCxEBVKIzw0BxntbSNEIlyZeMI5Exq3Hgf3DwhCVUpDaOU3izk6qlpVQVcM-PUmXUJFRDIajWXB2xysdzymudQa5GeG1yw/s320/doctor-who-tom-baker-season-18-1552995273.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> At that point my favorite Doctor far and away was Tom Baker
(only supplanted—but not entirely—by David Tennant in the new iteration.) His mixture of whimsy and high intelligence,
a kind of Time Lord Lewis Carroll, was a new sort of role model. I had already identified with the alien Mr.
Spock—this was a different way to accommodate my alienation. (All of these
protagonists were outsiders of a kind, and I could not help but identify.) I liked his style, too—a kind of post-60s
look, with long coat, floppy hat and very long scarf. I had them all in the closet, including a very long scarf with
better colors than his. As I transitioned my life away to new adventures living
and writing in Pittsburgh, his long hair with wild curls was an easy addition
(for as long as any of that lasted.)<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjujIzspy-9VKGmx_xvhJZ05KLnC30ca7F986CacZLAZ_uepGW_PpnyNgT-7S5eqJP-x-rMpp7-PQC2NQ_EsIz_OG2XCLr9QtVINu8iSxvga0l55j6X-idoj7kBp-3_2NLla9xjCjHu2x2qsynJMt0Pslr56RHDd8jqLkMbCfQVGafhfHH2ow/s615/0_DOUGLAS-ADAMS.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="411" data-original-width="615" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjujIzspy-9VKGmx_xvhJZ05KLnC30ca7F986CacZLAZ_uepGW_PpnyNgT-7S5eqJP-x-rMpp7-PQC2NQ_EsIz_OG2XCLr9QtVINu8iSxvga0l55j6X-idoj7kBp-3_2NLla9xjCjHu2x2qsynJMt0Pslr56RHDd8jqLkMbCfQVGafhfHH2ow/s320/0_DOUGLAS-ADAMS.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>The wit of the Tom Baker Doctor Who was deepened when
Douglas Adams wrote for the show and became its script editor for a year--Adams
of course was the author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide. Adams was a fascinating writer and talker-- especially on
ecological subjects there is no one who could be succinct and dramatic as he
could. He wrote a couple of funny and
charming cosmic detective novels, too.
His early death remains a huge loss.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Much later, another British series important to me was <i>Foyle’s
War</i>. Its format was unique: each
episode marked a point and an issue in World War II Britain, wrapped around a
complicated crime mystery on the homefront, usually murder. The UK's ITV produced it, and over here PBS featured it in its Mystery! series.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAOWqMcwh3mXCirTqtn2iw3s-z2mSB1E_UmJG4-E0fmROelqHb30D-qvP-tcQuZofQ_adptxspcn9iW3G99b2juAZUx_t8xPnkKOupsnFCABug3NNjkuMBHTLSzKIpMcG7pnIkbi6fqUuH_49bMKw9UM2twzBjSGGhWGhxfoZdiPjESOGMcA/s468/Foyles%20War03.jpg" style="clear: right; display: inline; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="464" data-original-width="468" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAOWqMcwh3mXCirTqtn2iw3s-z2mSB1E_UmJG4-E0fmROelqHb30D-qvP-tcQuZofQ_adptxspcn9iW3G99b2juAZUx_t8xPnkKOupsnFCABug3NNjkuMBHTLSzKIpMcG7pnIkbi6fqUuH_49bMKw9UM2twzBjSGGhWGhxfoZdiPjESOGMcA/s320/Foyles%20War03.jpg" width="320" /></a><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <br /> It had a rocky
television history in the UK and therefore a sporadic presence in the US but I saw enough of it to more recently obtain the DVD box
set and immerse myself in its stories and its world. The conception, execution
and historical depth and accuracy as well as the creative weaving of a good
mystery by its main writer, Anthony Horowitz, are all breathtaking, as is the
addictive performance of Michael Kitchen as police superintendent Christopher
Foyle, himself a model of rectitude.
Partly because of the UK’s Official Secrets Act, quite a lot about the
behind-the-scenes war effort in England was only revealed in the 21<sup>st</sup>
century, so a lot of intriguing World War II dramas emerged. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> My hometown loneliness and alienation were emphasized by the
daily ramifications of the fact that almost nobody—and almost nothing on
TV—quite shared my sense of humor. This
became acute as the horrifying, depressing, Orwellian 1980s began. At that point, Saturday Night Live had hit a
long dull spot, and Monty Python (which I wasn’t crazy about anyway) was no
longer regularly shown. But suddenly,
there was the best of all: SCTV was on the air!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiblC4Wjy47Ebo-H2CYdP6pulXFCr7FstyPCPREFShMeYTelh0CQ_9GrbnGvJbNx_xIXWWMNoYf00gWtwJ8_gZWwIYY4vHYA9oXUuJtTt29qD4ItZldzgtEuTidZcuro0L1K6KEgobgAAhEL7oylHFhT9I7aobGmLhqlR07XW8Etdtm6fQKTg/s400/sctv%20prickley.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="400" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiblC4Wjy47Ebo-H2CYdP6pulXFCr7FstyPCPREFShMeYTelh0CQ_9GrbnGvJbNx_xIXWWMNoYf00gWtwJ8_gZWwIYY4vHYA9oXUuJtTt29qD4ItZldzgtEuTidZcuro0L1K6KEgobgAAhEL7oylHFhT9I7aobGmLhqlR07XW8Etdtm6fQKTg/s320/sctv%20prickley.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">SCTV station manager Edith Prickley<br />(Andrea Martin)</td></tr></tbody></table><b><span style="font-size: medium;">S</span></b>econd City in Chicago was the best-known improv theatre in
the US, and they had a Canadian branch in Toronto. This group began doing a television show in Canada, combining sketches,
satires, fake movies, talk shows and other shows plus commercials pretending to
be programs of SCTV, a ramshackle station in the town of Melonville. The cast also played continuing characters,
chiefly the people running the stations, and the hosts and stars of the various
programs.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Then in 1981, the NBC music program <i>The Midnight Special </i>suddenly
ended production, and the 90 minute post-midnight Friday night slot opened
up. SCTV was an inexpensive
alternative, a stopgap that became a cult hit. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> After midnight was my prime time (and I believe the show was
repeated even later, after 2 am) so I became an avid viewer and grateful
fan. On its best nights, all 90 minutes
constituted the funniest show on television, and even on uneven nights, there
were always hilarious moments. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWLy3DyXDU8S-Y7LBxVKnSb6WJNuXODFrIRF-qttT0oDKUktrXnjxU0Q5lBjB0pXWy6Tz05IWkFoj5YpSKJDiAV6XmmSYlF47iShh_WAdbYfIWMCTpoGxC4FAyPW-B0p971uFrp0jxBAUmruzYG5TG1w8izx5qAUR9YizoE42XSkv8_1FKYw/s300/sctv02.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWLy3DyXDU8S-Y7LBxVKnSb6WJNuXODFrIRF-qttT0oDKUktrXnjxU0Q5lBjB0pXWy6Tz05IWkFoj5YpSKJDiAV6XmmSYlF47iShh_WAdbYfIWMCTpoGxC4FAyPW-B0p971uFrp0jxBAUmruzYG5TG1w8izx5qAUR9YizoE42XSkv8_1FKYw/w320-h320/sctv02.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />There were variations in the cast over the years but the
episodes I saw mainly featured John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Andrea Martin, Eugene
Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis. (Harold Ramis, Robin Duke
and Martin Short also appeared at different times. Short introduced his
defining character, Ed Grimley, on SCTV before he moved to Saturday Night
Live.) <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> All these cast members went on to some degree of Hollywood
and US television success--Candy made the biggest splash initially, Moranis
starred in the “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” series, and most recently Eugene Levy
and Catherine O’Hara won Emmys for their performances in Levy and Son’s series <i>Schitt’s
Creek</i>. In addition to her comic
roles, Andrea Martin has been nominated for the Tony Awards’ Best Featured
Actor in a Musical a record five times.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMVVKM-wlAyvanefvimVNool6Prs7Dl9PzX_nA-ns5kJUvVS3bHWcYyqae3R13CUQZROHpeFclqOu9JD3KJ0tZkWfZIvX9kDNgaHXVhGP8w8KYdzsBdeB_pOozFljoVGGYt7GpH-_ETxPsnFlTyX77pPJISR741Gbpo3THhV1H3k-8Qp-Xiw/s977/sctv%20lola%20heatherton.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="977" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMVVKM-wlAyvanefvimVNool6Prs7Dl9PzX_nA-ns5kJUvVS3bHWcYyqae3R13CUQZROHpeFclqOu9JD3KJ0tZkWfZIvX9kDNgaHXVhGP8w8KYdzsBdeB_pOozFljoVGGYt7GpH-_ETxPsnFlTyX77pPJISR741Gbpo3THhV1H3k-8Qp-Xiw/s320/sctv%20lola%20heatherton.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Catherine O'Hara as "Lola Heatherton"</td></tr></tbody></table> SCTV’s basic target was television itself. The first years of Saturday Night Live also
skewered TV and its commercials ( like Dan Ackroyd demonstrating the
Trout-O-Matic and other gems from Ronko) as had Steve Allen and Sid Caesar to
some degree, but thanks to its premise, SCTV was really television-centric.
They took on every form, including the saccharine sentimentality and circular
flattery exhibited in celebrity talk
shows. The premise of a small town
station broadcasting cheap versions of program types exposed their absurdity
beneath the glitz. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5mf7zsKSSG3O37SDQqmsy-WJNiYKUdPurMB4bEFZ7zC4VHGBA_yRQkSs1gWzbR6eFmzsBIhPw9s71WBgLaoNikJGIyhsI_lBadlEfECrZmTB4cIdRTGc5gWwzgC27VND046JyfVCnO5BvyFgKOHPWZJahbG2fhOm179uTfR1UheOmh5sKeA/s379/sctv%20hope%20woody.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="328" data-original-width="379" height="173" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5mf7zsKSSG3O37SDQqmsy-WJNiYKUdPurMB4bEFZ7zC4VHGBA_yRQkSs1gWzbR6eFmzsBIhPw9s71WBgLaoNikJGIyhsI_lBadlEfECrZmTB4cIdRTGc5gWwzgC27VND046JyfVCnO5BvyFgKOHPWZJahbG2fhOm179uTfR1UheOmh5sKeA/w200-h173/sctv%20hope%20woody.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Woody and Bob Hope</td></tr></tbody></table> In their impressions
of the famous and in their delineations of recurring characters (including the
hypocrisies evident in their off camera versus on camera personalities) the
cast showed amazing skill and attention to detail, as well as an instinct for
deeper and uncomfortable layers. For
instance, Dave Thomas did an eerily deadpan, surprisingly normal-sounding and
yet perverse Bob Hope, while the chameleon Rick Moranis nailed a sad sack Woody
Allen. Catherine O’Hara’s portrayal of
Katherine Hepburn was devilish and affectionate, and who could forget John
Candy’s Luciano Pavaroti—or his Julia Child?<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijZM0_LCvOpmczTnwD7XxRG1xm_xYeti3KAF9CXA8sYwQdQL7ACWLvnDPjjLBkorCf72XcnwR-7VcrB_-2ROR7xkakOD5Qe8CSYQpQhPJh5J89UBbDJPHU1wnv1hruQS8vEcV9J2s6WGNMb8oFr54CsOHWDuxj_9_ibiUTjk16NoCHq43kAA/s432/Count_Howlj.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="432" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijZM0_LCvOpmczTnwD7XxRG1xm_xYeti3KAF9CXA8sYwQdQL7ACWLvnDPjjLBkorCf72XcnwR-7VcrB_-2ROR7xkakOD5Qe8CSYQpQhPJh5J89UBbDJPHU1wnv1hruQS8vEcV9J2s6WGNMb8oFr54CsOHWDuxj_9_ibiUTjk16NoCHq43kAA/s320/Count_Howlj.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> Several running bits became legendary. Joe Flaherty’s Count Floyd introducing
Monster Chiller Horror Theatre was a parody of every late night horror film
host, but specifically inspired by “Chilly Billy” Cardille, host of Pittsburgh’s
Chiller Theatre, which Pittsburger Flaherty knew well. (Like Cardille, Count
Floyd was a moonlighting TV news reporter seen on SCTV, Floyd Robertson, paired
with Eugene Levy’s hapless Ed Camenbert.)<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Flaherty further
exploited his Pittsburgh roots, for instance by narrating a horror film, <i>Blood
Sucking Monkeys From West Mifflin PA,</i> providing western Pennsylvania
geographical details and interpolated Pittsburgh accents. For the initiated
it’s a reminder than indeed one of the classic horror films of modern times, <i>Night
of the Living Dead</i>, was shot in Pittsburgh—with Bill Cardille in the cast
playing a news reporter. Later in
SCTV’s run, the cast performed a series of horror films starring John Candy,
including <i>Dr. Tongue’s 3-D House of Pancakes, </i>which also lampooned their
cheap 3-D effects. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihTDIM-ky78haG2vuTr-C09dkaEPH6U_QfZQ8ip6OMbmSOOTPD8DUPh4kCrDiKMcsIb-c7w_42YV3NjFVa87fp320QcR7PQMSx2xT5pBFs5hobAYf9OuuM0PC_ek4NO_2L7LDbWon8iDAhWQTLGHr-_cccfPXc9eyoYW32_zjSZrUAzKUQVw/s2002/sctv01.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1001" data-original-width="2002" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihTDIM-ky78haG2vuTr-C09dkaEPH6U_QfZQ8ip6OMbmSOOTPD8DUPh4kCrDiKMcsIb-c7w_42YV3NjFVa87fp320QcR7PQMSx2xT5pBFs5hobAYf9OuuM0PC_ek4NO_2L7LDbWon8iDAhWQTLGHr-_cccfPXc9eyoYW32_zjSZrUAzKUQVw/s320/sctv01.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>What turned out to be their most popular and characteristic
bit was a parody of a Canadian public access show, <i>The Great While North</i>,
in which two rural brothers in stocking caps, Doug and Bob McKenzie (Thomas and
Moranis), drank beer from cans while sniping at each other about “today’s
topic.” It was a rage in Canada and
enough of a novelty in the US to lead to a feature film, <i>Strange Brew</i>.</div><div><br /></div><div> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPxzBygqyvOBZhTofWMmuTCCnKiiBOT3I9vHcz4ntTixpOjA0DlnDEouMjaitb7fXeO9HWV0ckBQ3W1A9tKbeLvs8xiH1X2ldMOl1mOnLw9aseqSZjDXMdXm7BkI-M2InCj-3gMCi8WDyKHlUO1M4WHRjVJNCUUhAyl_TKdCF_tyd4xhN1UA/s467/sctv9.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="388" data-original-width="467" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPxzBygqyvOBZhTofWMmuTCCnKiiBOT3I9vHcz4ntTixpOjA0DlnDEouMjaitb7fXeO9HWV0ckBQ3W1A9tKbeLvs8xiH1X2ldMOl1mOnLw9aseqSZjDXMdXm7BkI-M2InCj-3gMCi8WDyKHlUO1M4WHRjVJNCUUhAyl_TKdCF_tyd4xhN1UA/w200-h166/sctv9.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Polka stars the Schmenge Bros</td></tr></tbody></table>SCTV later appeared for a year on Cinemax, and could be
found in various packages into the 1990s. For those who remember
those late night laughs in the dark, it takes only mentioning character names
to elicit them again: Guy Caballero, Edith Prickley, Sammy Maudlin, Mrs. Falbo,
Bobby Bittman (“How are ya!”), Lola Heatherton (“I want to bear your children!”),
Johnny La Rue, Gerry Todd, Mayor Tommy Shanks, the Schmenge Brothers, Big Jim
McBob and Billy Sol Hurok (“Blowed up good! Blowed up real good!”), and of
course Tex and Edna’s Organ Emporium (“Come on down...”) <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqNFPz7MwMHXu0yAWk5RpShgtcz5KJ-u0VK3KWyvzFuUDSWVHQlAPqb6o92tNJRedw_zeZOVyagfx1s-YHvBY3ZjTRwYq2FQcym-Ldfp9klBAfMMFllKLhxZjBpOY3h2VM_KiiA0Y9_bPYoJ3F1fETJcbzg1RBI6N7SS0Eg-YSYBU-5N3OPw/s320/sctv%20organ.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="180" data-original-width="320" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqNFPz7MwMHXu0yAWk5RpShgtcz5KJ-u0VK3KWyvzFuUDSWVHQlAPqb6o92tNJRedw_zeZOVyagfx1s-YHvBY3ZjTRwYq2FQcym-Ldfp9klBAfMMFllKLhxZjBpOY3h2VM_KiiA0Y9_bPYoJ3F1fETJcbzg1RBI6N7SS0Eg-YSYBU-5N3OPw/s1600/sctv%20organ.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Expanding on television’s trivialities can be enervating in
bulk, but much of it still works for me, along with the memory of feeling part
of a rowdy, imaginative and wildly fun group, even in the distant isolation of
a solitary Friday night.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Apart from SCTV, the last several aforementioned shows from
the beyond the US first appeared on PBS (though SCTV eventually was shown
there, too.) These weren’t the only
public television programs that nourished and saved me, even directed me, in
those years, from the 70s into the 1990s.
Those shows are featured in the last two episodes of this series. So don't touch that dial.</p></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-60032935978570076742023-07-07T22:15:00.003-07:002023-07-07T22:17:44.877-07:00TV and Me: A Secret History of Cable TV<p><i> Television and I grew up together. This is our story. Latest in a<a href="http://dreamingup.blogspot.com/search/label/TV%20and%20Me"> series</a>.</i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib2gKBrZrV3LlOhz1qnZr29fQ16ABXndxsLOSQS-MxqPKciLi8MBnCrySqypNzF3JR0QgYN0a0ZpEusdDKa5B-4BbmJeEAfXedO9auY5rZKapAhMC9fgsJ-3jipJMSS_saq59uNYEnbmNsVxVCeKyj4juZK8A5Y55agLIWD9uSE2IBiiLwJA/s550/Stormy-Weather-1943-lena-horne-title-song.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="415" data-original-width="550" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib2gKBrZrV3LlOhz1qnZr29fQ16ABXndxsLOSQS-MxqPKciLi8MBnCrySqypNzF3JR0QgYN0a0ZpEusdDKa5B-4BbmJeEAfXedO9auY5rZKapAhMC9fgsJ-3jipJMSS_saq59uNYEnbmNsVxVCeKyj4juZK8A5Y55agLIWD9uSE2IBiiLwJA/s320/Stormy-Weather-1943-lena-horne-title-song.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>In 1973 or so I went back from Cambridge to Greensburg to visit my
parents and family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My old bedroom had
been converted to a den a few years before, and the huge console television set
there was now on its last legs, with an uncertain purchase on color (the
picture tended to be dark pink and white.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But there was new element to it: it was hooked up to something called
cable.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Cable was so new there that there wasn’t much on—it kept
repeating the same movie, <i>Stormy Weather</i> with Lena Horne, Bill Robinson,
Cab Calloway and an all Black cast, including the fabulous dance team of the
Nicholas Brothers. Evidently the cable was being tested with this apparently out-of-copyright film. Lucky for me--I must have seen
parts of it at least six times.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Cable came with a lot of publicity about its potential, but
for Greensburg, cable had one major appeal: reception. Television had always been prey to the
vagaries of rooftop antennas and rabbit ears wrapped in tinfoil on top of the
set, and their interactions with weather, geography, electrical disturbances and
interference. Some distant stations
drifted in and out, but for us even the Pittsburgh stations weren’t entirely
reliable, especially the educational (or now public) TV station WQED on channel
13.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> But the perils of broadcasting over the air disappeared when
the signal reached the TV set directly through wires and cables. A few additional stations were more of a
bonus at that point.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9cCf6xokRIivSZmuDsCCtmPTu1VvsYV4YEEqaZW4cbSh45XizZC3LuBz1tQVjvNG0bzhj7Mtm8rfPJF_RZocBuLaVQ4vD2-lbX2WYKrqib-TLZhNgLtZGSJOmz4Z2JTASHQZn_W4A9yyNCWC4E-ZoLh_J5R1xyHlo4JYFFa82nS4vEhedzA/s500/0424_tv.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9cCf6xokRIivSZmuDsCCtmPTu1VvsYV4YEEqaZW4cbSh45XizZC3LuBz1tQVjvNG0bzhj7Mtm8rfPJF_RZocBuLaVQ4vD2-lbX2WYKrqib-TLZhNgLtZGSJOmz4Z2JTASHQZn_W4A9yyNCWC4E-ZoLh_J5R1xyHlo4JYFFa82nS4vEhedzA/s320/0424_tv.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> Later in the 70s, there were more channels on cable, though
few of them were actually new. For the
major beneficiary of this technology turned out to be the small UHF
stations. The VHF (Very High
Frequency) signals were stronger. They occupied the first 13 channel
positions, though two adjacent channels were often considered too close to allow
stations to broadcast successfully on both.
The rest of the channels (14 to 83) were for UHF (Ultra High Frequency)
stations—that signal was innately weaker, so these stations had problems
transmitting across the topography of hills and valleys, especially in a place
like Pittsburgh that had plenty of both.
Nationally UHF stations struggled to survive.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> But then came cable, which presented the UHF stations with a
level playing field—their signal was just as strong as the bigger VHF stations
when it went directly through the cable. The UHF stations could now be seen—but could their programs
compete? They didn’t have much money
for production, nor were many network affiliates. What they had however was syndication. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Usually a station could make money on a syndicated network
series if it had at least five years of episodes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there was a show just coming onto the syndication market that
had only three years of shows before being cancelled by NBC in 1969.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some UHF channels took a chance on it, perhaps
noticing that since 1972 enthusiastic crowds had been showing up for
conventions honoring it, even when it was no longer on the air. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNlF1qkwXFKAYk44QMxPklEUHeoOMddOtfFoUv_QWibJTGP7pqEb_SIMN1LNgM4aO1HJeU--19Y1kGMJwa1sK9ME3Xa1RzbBpjHLPVAcLqM7CATbZIklMe5DDnFs-eIaAIorvou2ZhMbIzh7BEzddeaqO7iOledyKz_LV51Z-FEHS84cz2Uw/s1440/thealternativefactorhd804.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1440" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNlF1qkwXFKAYk44QMxPklEUHeoOMddOtfFoUv_QWibJTGP7pqEb_SIMN1LNgM4aO1HJeU--19Y1kGMJwa1sK9ME3Xa1RzbBpjHLPVAcLqM7CATbZIklMe5DDnFs-eIaAIorvou2ZhMbIzh7BEzddeaqO7iOledyKz_LV51Z-FEHS84cz2Uw/w400-h300/thealternativefactorhd804.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>That show of course was <i>Star Trek</i>. By programming it every day (opposite the
six p.m. news was a favorite time) syndication gave viewers an opportunity to immerse
in the particular Star Trek universe, and see its characters every day, like
friends or family. It became an immense
hit and a national phenomenon, often playing on multiple channels in the bigger
cities (including some VHS channels), and definitely competing for audience
share. By 1976, Star Trek was being
seen in 148 television markets in the U.S., and on 54 stations in other
countries.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Star Trek became a joyful sensation and an immediate part of
the culture. In 1975 I was the arts
section editor of an alternative weekly newspaper in Washington, D.C. (and
later its editor.) The staff was mostly
young and the office could get chaotic.
I was somehow seen as a voice of reason, and a calm presence—so my
office nickname became Spock. Once when
two staff members were arguing heatedly in the center of the room I walked up
behind them, applied the Vulcan neck pinch, and they both immediately fell to
the ground. That was the Star Trek
effect in the 1970s.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> More than a half century after it first aired, Star Trek has several live action and animated TV series on the
Paramount streaming network, several decades after three live action series ran for seven years and
another for four years on cable TV in the 80s and 90s. The original Star Trek
cast made six feature films beginning in 1979, and other casts have so far made
seven more. Star Trek had the intrinsic
qualities that has supported its popularity and longevity, but this ongoing
empire really began because of the technical coincidence that the original series went into syndication at pretty
much the precise moment that UHF stations got onto cable TV systems. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWfG2-WiEHLu8vaRX1QOi5gUod-85lZBgBjgaxoIf3y5tUyAgdWAUcpgHhIbyp0ITSHWMk0GKUkyUhDpAzHWfvL2nVQu4HxW7zB5-hked3xSTNRCQB5Ls1Vi19bXi9Snq4NbRptnnC_VTFiDKiNdlMBNRYT3VncBprO2Va_4bM4ij2j5QhaQ/s1000/EpM84YKWMAIZq3-.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="774" data-original-width="1000" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWfG2-WiEHLu8vaRX1QOi5gUod-85lZBgBjgaxoIf3y5tUyAgdWAUcpgHhIbyp0ITSHWMk0GKUkyUhDpAzHWfvL2nVQu4HxW7zB5-hked3xSTNRCQB5Ls1Vi19bXi9Snq4NbRptnnC_VTFiDKiNdlMBNRYT3VncBprO2Va_4bM4ij2j5QhaQ/s320/EpM84YKWMAIZq3-.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">C</span></b>able’s potential was vast, partly because transmissions
through the cable system weren’t restricted to the limited number of channels
that could come over the air, using the available frequencies. Cable could deliver an almost unlimited
number of channels, eventually with an additional device that also freed you from being
tethered to your set if you wanted to switch: it was called the remote. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> But even if your main reason for hooking up to cable was to
improve your reception, the primary change cable brought about was this: you
had to pay to watch television. Not
just to buy the TV set, which until then was all you ever had to pay for to
watch TV. (Well, the antenna cost a few bucks.) But to get the programs, including everything you used to get
free, you now had to pay a fee, every month, to the company that hooked you up.
And it’s been like that ever since.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> It’s probably long been forgotten that, in addition to the
promise of better reception for on-air stations, the argument used to lure
users was that cable would provide lots of new channels unique to cable—and since you were
paying a monthly free, the programs on those stations would be without
commercials. Advertising was only necessary to pay for programs when they were free.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgECbeQ3xAg-_rfkp26IGM10PVmeXx8zbTTd1KtfkfjP0hlH53gOMP7u56G72t_ZsyMNlSD2Mwm9hg5g84mazBFFEqNH3MqS3jCDjAEyF-MNR1TcawvQVvPUhvqE3PblmuPBTs8QEKuPslX8eZgPauLfneoAaCpIFLLtXLWPfDXbCPacc-Kw/s480/hqdefault%20(2).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="480" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgECbeQ3xAg-_rfkp26IGM10PVmeXx8zbTTd1KtfkfjP0hlH53gOMP7u56G72t_ZsyMNlSD2Mwm9hg5g84mazBFFEqNH3MqS3jCDjAEyF-MNR1TcawvQVvPUhvqE3PblmuPBTs8QEKuPslX8eZgPauLfneoAaCpIFLLtXLWPfDXbCPacc-Kw/s320/hqdefault%20(2).jpg" width="320" /></a></div> Commercials! This
far into this series on early television and this singular phenomenon of the TV
commercial is only now appearing. Yet
the commercials are what television viewers are likely to recall (whether they
want to or not), even more than the programs. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> For me, growing up with television meant watching on <i>Howdy
Doody</i> the simple drawings of Happy Tooth being threatened by Mr. Tooth
Decay, before the application of Colgate Dental Crème (<i>It cleans your
breath—what a toothpaste—while it cleans your teeth</i>!) or hearing the Halo
jingle (<i>Halo, everybody, halo! Halo is the shampoo that glorifies your hair</i>)
sung in its entirety by Frank Sinatra on the Jimmy Durante Show.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0hfeJAjQbyUAv8g1MwpA8-e7K7YukK5AxKqm7HpzGb3kO97E3NmiFU5jIoUzITElgMuCSMl5hq9wwSuz9sQRlPOdveuvIU36ADRDX7cvOvSzJg0nf6FqCIiSS5DI06yodCub789gmWBta9RY8YrWZwEog4R_Xnm3Q7fLdTQiQ1u9mUoBdHw/s640/sddefault.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0hfeJAjQbyUAv8g1MwpA8-e7K7YukK5AxKqm7HpzGb3kO97E3NmiFU5jIoUzITElgMuCSMl5hq9wwSuz9sQRlPOdveuvIU36ADRDX7cvOvSzJg0nf6FqCIiSS5DI06yodCub789gmWBta9RY8YrWZwEog4R_Xnm3Q7fLdTQiQ1u9mUoBdHw/w200-h150/sddefault.jpg" width="200" /></a></div> My contemporaries may not recall Playhouse 90 but start the
jingle <i>You’ll wonder where the yellow went,</i> and they’ll finish it: <i>when
you brush your teeth with Pepsodent.</i>
Even Winky Dink or Soupy Sales may have faded from memory before the
quartet in the bathtub singing <i>Ajax, the foaming cleanser (baba baba ba ba
bom) floats the dirt right down the drain!
</i>Or Speedy Alka-Seltzer crooning <i>Plop plop fizz fizz oh what a
relief it is!</i><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioqCDVACVvP-yFlPrUuCQcHSt4m3VLaEgf1_IdXV5JW5VymreODY8ZgMaeY4SdN_1A7SjhKpHkZtjZM3m33TYnxLl78d32IxHWyHIJPd0KgbFwhzCaeKw0Zsk0GVf0lu1sUjp-H9edoAXdakWo8R1Wf7X90cd_haTPkePekcyfnywO0XjnzA/s480/hqdefault%20(4).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="480" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioqCDVACVvP-yFlPrUuCQcHSt4m3VLaEgf1_IdXV5JW5VymreODY8ZgMaeY4SdN_1A7SjhKpHkZtjZM3m33TYnxLl78d32IxHWyHIJPd0KgbFwhzCaeKw0Zsk0GVf0lu1sUjp-H9edoAXdakWo8R1Wf7X90cd_haTPkePekcyfnywO0XjnzA/w200-h150/hqdefault%20(4).jpg" width="200" /></a></div> The repetition of commercial phrases burns into the brain (<i>You
never outgrow your need for milk, Only you can prevent forest fires, that’s a
speesy spicy meatball, where’s the beef?)</i>
We saw live pitches by the stars of the show (Commander Corey of the
Space Patrol leaving the Terra V in jeopardy to join Cadet Happy in extolling
the merits of Nestles Crunch or cocoa) evolve into shorter special effects fantasies, and
then even shorter ones. There might a
cascade of four, five or six frenetic, intense, boldly absurd and insistent messages in a row. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> So by the 70s there were so many commercials bunched
together in the breaks that it was more than possible to lose the thread of the
show—or to lose interest in it. From their 1950s beginnings, when they either presented serious arguments for why this product is better, or appealing little fantasies like Speedy Alka-Seltzer. But all too soon they became boldly false hyperactive scenarios championing the trivial--they set the template of disingenuous television lying that's been followed ever since, by infomercials, certain cable news channels and certain politicians.</p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl1GX7t6I_n4fIMaG2-UDYHb1pogutR1H-av4i7PfE8fic8RsoIn2FHMa5BFmPSD1OdqiSxnrd2ZyDSm2qFaVGcOBoJ3jaJDiRygLKub4lf_uC9D1UrST58VGIDklxQuO9voqA4uaQqufHBElG58Fec-6fR8s1w3CysOc3gjTejnkGsSOC0A/s1200/TV-Commercials-From-The-70s-That%E2%80%99ll-Make-You-Walk-On-Sunshine.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="903" data-original-width="1200" height="151" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl1GX7t6I_n4fIMaG2-UDYHb1pogutR1H-av4i7PfE8fic8RsoIn2FHMa5BFmPSD1OdqiSxnrd2ZyDSm2qFaVGcOBoJ3jaJDiRygLKub4lf_uC9D1UrST58VGIDklxQuO9voqA4uaQqufHBElG58Fec-6fR8s1w3CysOc3gjTejnkGsSOC0A/w200-h151/TV-Commercials-From-The-70s-That%E2%80%99ll-Make-You-Walk-On-Sunshine.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>The experience of being subjected to commercials became more than distraction—this loud, relentless grinning assault was demoralizing. (Although there were—and are—aficionados who care more about
commercials than what they sponsor.
Witness the immense attention to the TV ads on the Super Bowl, often
eclipsing the ink on the game itself.)<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]-->Sure enough, once viewers were hooked, commercials began to creep onto cable shows, as
indeed they began to appear on public broadcasting. The template for what happened later on the Internet (with
YouTube, for example) and streaming was set: create a market, establish market
share with ad-free programs or sites, and quickly buy up the competition. Then when alternatives have faded and the customers are hooked into
the habit, start up the ad machines. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A</span></b>nother promise of cable was that it could—no, that it
would—bring very different kinds of programs into the American home. There were so many potential cable channels
that they didn’t all have to be used for common denominator programs—they could
bring true variety and specialized programs that didn’t require a mass
audience. There could be a channel for
classical music, and for plays, and for more in-depth documentaries and
discussions of public issues than the networks could find time to broadcast. There could be a channel for every sport,
channels for hobbies and games—a chess channel! A knitting channel!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-EgeawwW3leic2TW5iUTLlkgX_F8ZtqqlIGY0wZTos8XujyErSn8Xe3UIgaRFY2I73_qhLT-hretmfvEkHeeObpeZzEwCVOCC8s70NDuBlTT7MwNTY1MparWlJhqxArD1o9nzgFg3KfmCszy93Qwsn8ALtJg0COjzf2GlnemlOmVWRd12DA/s440/at_nbc.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="330" data-original-width="440" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-EgeawwW3leic2TW5iUTLlkgX_F8ZtqqlIGY0wZTos8XujyErSn8Xe3UIgaRFY2I73_qhLT-hretmfvEkHeeObpeZzEwCVOCC8s70NDuBlTT7MwNTY1MparWlJhqxArD1o9nzgFg3KfmCszy93Qwsn8ALtJg0COjzf2GlnemlOmVWRd12DA/s320/at_nbc.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> Each new communications medium arrived with the same promise
of bringing culture, information and education to the public. That included
television itself, and to some extent, the networks tried. NBC had its own
orchestra (though a holdover from radio days), and there was more opera, classical music and dance on early TV than
there was by the 1970s, especially outside PBS. Even in the 60s and 70s, talk shows routinely had prominent
writers and a few artists and scientists as guests. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> In the beginning, cable seemed like it might even succeed
where network TV had failed. One of the
first production companies for cable, an outfit called Home Box Office, showed
at least its New York audience a series of complex lectures on a Jungian
approach to myth by Joseph Campbell. Needless to say, HBO moved on from there. (A decade later Bill Moyers would provide
better context and production values to his PBS version of <i>The Powers of
Myth with Joseph Campbell</i>.) </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC0zGWAQcu94mHyDAb7WisdaPSAbPaA-Rp7NuV9eXkOF61fWwHtmLa1O5cb6fGWqVUv0xTUuW7fTZIXbS16EADei6Q0tb2QaF90gjLfFlxUM3nCmSfBxCBVQ_LlekOqiot2BU8VQmZqbklXlLecZDf8xRpJydduffe-LngYqYWSKdD5d72lQ/s1024/cable-compare-The-Complete-History-of-Cable-TV-02.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="438" data-original-width="1024" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC0zGWAQcu94mHyDAb7WisdaPSAbPaA-Rp7NuV9eXkOF61fWwHtmLa1O5cb6fGWqVUv0xTUuW7fTZIXbS16EADei6Q0tb2QaF90gjLfFlxUM3nCmSfBxCBVQ_LlekOqiot2BU8VQmZqbklXlLecZDf8xRpJydduffe-LngYqYWSKdD5d72lQ/w400-h171/cable-compare-The-Complete-History-of-Cable-TV-02.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> Cable saw innovations that changed culture, such as Ted
Turner’s news channels and MTV. But instead of expanding choice to include arts
and intelligence, these subjects were blithely labeled as elitist, and television expanded on
its previous path. <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">An early national cable channel called itself Arts and
Entertainment, and for awhile the arts actually were represented.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When A&E faltered, a new channel called
Bravo! took up the slack to focus on performances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Discovery channel was to focus on science, the History
Channel on history, the American Movie Channel showed old movies, and so on.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> By now they have all largely succumbed to the same lowest
common denominator competition as the broadcast networks, especially the latest form of crass "reality"shows. A&E and Bravo became mere corporate
names without identity, Discovery began to specialize in sharks and the
pseudo-science equivalents of conspiracy theories, and the History Channel
became better known as the Hitler Channel.
Eventually most became either amorphous holdings of larger conglomerates,
or the sponsoring conglomerate itself.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Some specialized channels and programs did result,
especially in areas of sports and recreation.
The great dream of competitive skydiving and skateboarding on TV was
realized. But even this was mostly more
of the same. Thus the Bruce Springsteen
song<i>: 57 Channels (and Nothin’ On.)</i>
(He has since increased the number of channels in performance.) </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvwF3Rqvr67vn7MGQK_8KdaV0LrETZtwtoKeL9H077XOniBYMyMreEbzCFm_7Lw2FG1PYAFBY_Sbce7qBoaOoj_xs4EH-mTk6AFPPrbNNAghcs-9Oc5V2gyLVGIcAWeqA6PWOC2JczCL8jxczxsK3KNLohr-yhVfbPo_mFUndWuV9oS6cgww/s880/download%20(3).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="641" data-original-width="880" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvwF3Rqvr67vn7MGQK_8KdaV0LrETZtwtoKeL9H077XOniBYMyMreEbzCFm_7Lw2FG1PYAFBY_Sbce7qBoaOoj_xs4EH-mTk6AFPPrbNNAghcs-9Oc5V2gyLVGIcAWeqA6PWOC2JczCL8jxczxsK3KNLohr-yhVfbPo_mFUndWuV9oS6cgww/s320/download%20(3).jpg" width="320" /></a></div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Y</span></b>et another potential of cable hyped at the beginning was
the possibility of two-way communication on television through the cable. In the late 70s, the corporate entity then
known as Warner Communications wired the city of Columbus, Ohio with a two-way
system they called Qube. I researched
and wrote an article about this experiment, which involved spending a week or
so in Columbus observing the system and how it was used. I also reviewed another two-way system and
delved into the history and politics of cable up to that point.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The Columbus experiment centered on the Qube console,
precursor to the remote, though more the size of a Star Trek tricorder. Its buttons were color-coded: blue for
regular broadcast television channels, red for premium channels (concerts,
movies and the world’s first but not last 24 hour channel of softcore
porn), and green for so-called
Community programming, all produced by Warner just for this experiment. But the innovative attractions were the five
buttons on the far right: the response buttons, used for the green channels.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLoulnfeoQ0erI1PoiGSZZnd3bxg1KIBwujBpLNjfLac-jqWKESrzY6a-GdGw6R5CM5JSCP-ZO0BCSS5wLitl_wY-YEJOzuCeiiKpPW5PEQG-SBQ-Kj5EIb6pdDSFePOPmhUk7so081mShWZcSjXbno_hPUeS1dJ_Lx_TOjwc37n68OQZ-9g/s645/QUBE-CONSOLE.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="645" data-original-width="506" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLoulnfeoQ0erI1PoiGSZZnd3bxg1KIBwujBpLNjfLac-jqWKESrzY6a-GdGw6R5CM5JSCP-ZO0BCSS5wLitl_wY-YEJOzuCeiiKpPW5PEQG-SBQ-Kj5EIb6pdDSFePOPmhUk7so081mShWZcSjXbno_hPUeS1dJ_Lx_TOjwc37n68OQZ-9g/s320/QUBE-CONSOLE.jpg" width="251" /></a></div> When a response is requested by somebody on the screen for a
yes/no question or something more like multiple choice, with the magic words
“Touch now!” the viewer makes a
selection and within six seconds that response is received, then tabulated with
others and the results instantly appeared. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The questions could be from town planners asking if there is
enough small-unit housing (Strongly agree/ Agree/ Neutral/ Disagree/Strongly
disagree) or a publishing survey asking which face you’d like to see on the
cover of Us Magazine, with five choices.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> But mostly they were the kind of questions I witnessed
during the afternoon teen show, in which five female high school students at a
local swimming pool peeled back a bit of their swimsuits, and the host asked
viewers at home to vote on who had the best tan line. As well as what kind of bathing suit female viewers wore (the
result: one piece 54%, two piece 46%.)
I also watched the Columbus equivalent of the Gong Show, with viewers at
home anonymously—and liberally-- wielding the gong.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> And a talk show with an insurance agent as guest, who
viewers could contact through their Qube box.
But unlike guests on normal TV talk shows who were paid a fee or
appeared for free, it turned out that unbeknownst to viewers the insurance man
was paying to be on the show. He was his
own secret commercial. This stealth precursor to the “infomercial” turned out
to be a routine Qube practice. When I mentioned the paying “guest” to a viewing
couple they weren’t really surprised. A
lot of products were being named. When I questioned Qube officials about this
subterfuge, they were puzzled that anybody might object, but suggested
corporate might reconsider the practice.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFvLlmImU466iggY4P7G0Piyx4ybpLWqR0sPvBLzAaAlagO_Wzv9M1sOMOeuvYkE62RX5zhVuuASRq4lOYMbqii1mjkeUof9zZIduW-LVCTPPo1SbrseFAtLRBv03ssJTZtdpjKJOzAWSduQsC2N3IgEabsRgZ0wFJFGyxD4LryMaTsani8g/s236/mqdefault.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="180" data-original-width="236" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFvLlmImU466iggY4P7G0Piyx4ybpLWqR0sPvBLzAaAlagO_Wzv9M1sOMOeuvYkE62RX5zhVuuASRq4lOYMbqii1mjkeUof9zZIduW-LVCTPPo1SbrseFAtLRBv03ssJTZtdpjKJOzAWSduQsC2N3IgEabsRgZ0wFJFGyxD4LryMaTsani8g/s1600/mqdefault.jpg" width="236" /></a></div> Qube did construct an Electronic Town Meeting for one
municipality in the Columbus area, but it was more sterile gloss than
substance, heavily controlled by the regular evening talk show duo, whose
questions to viewers normally were on the level of naming the studio cat.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Meanwhile, another experiment was ongoing in Reading and Berks County, Pennsylvania in a different kind of participatory television, organized by the Alternative Media Center at New York University. It started by linking senior
centers and grew to encompass the entire system. Programs were generated by the users themselves. I read the NYU report and spoke with Eileen
Connell, who worked with participants, training them on how to use the
equipment and listening to what they wanted the system to do, which determined
how the system was designed.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> It was a long and
apparently fascinating process, and eventually yielded surprising results. For
example, a participant in one program
mentioned labor troubles in Reading fifty years before, and it struck a
chord—seemingly for the first time, many people shared their recollections, and
teachers and younger people got in touch, because this was local history that
had never been written down. Contrast
this with Qube’s attempt at a pre-fab nostalgia program about Columbus, which
became one of its first programs to be cancelled. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6QvMuLYoCbbRzAkOnhIbpAJdsaIR2IJ4KhB2MG1r7uoncf-17Ooe_DRfduUIMC5b3u1Lna6-NwCz0TR0szZJoxaP6ghbW_o6oeZ_754EBqotyQgltEizNq8i-tGwm_EejGgK8s5LwGzkEjG3JDCtskcU-ZQqxLBZXQxS83hTaHpSMcN6mEg/s1280/maxresdefault-22.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6QvMuLYoCbbRzAkOnhIbpAJdsaIR2IJ4KhB2MG1r7uoncf-17Ooe_DRfduUIMC5b3u1Lna6-NwCz0TR0szZJoxaP6ghbW_o6oeZ_754EBqotyQgltEizNq8i-tGwm_EejGgK8s5LwGzkEjG3JDCtskcU-ZQqxLBZXQxS83hTaHpSMcN6mEg/s320/maxresdefault-22.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>The Qube system demanded what has come to be regarded as
professional television, and though it decried the mediocrity of broadcast TV,
it replicated it. The Reading system set out to prove that effective use of
television—and specifically interactive TV--didn’t have to be all that professional.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> I watched a tape of one such program, a community meeting from Reading: there was
sweat, fits of temper, tears, boring monologues, fierce debates, ambushes of
humor, and large dollops of something rare on polished TV: sincerity. The program wasn’t about a process—it was
the process. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> “It’s a very down-home system,” Connell told me. “It’s not
snappy but it’s remarkably effective.
It had an extraordinary effect on how people saw themselves.” The Reading system did silly entertainment programs and
programs with a very local character (“Tell It To Eben and Herb”) but their
interactive programs were serious, yet no more technically sophisticated than
someone asking a question on a split screen with someone answering it: “The
noun and the verb of the system,” Connell called it. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> That was the key, and the major problem with the Qube
response system and all subsequent iterations everywhere: “People in the Qube
system can answer what’s asked of them, but they aren’t in control of the
questions,” Eileen Connell observed. “It’s even more important who asks the questions
than who answers.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b><span style="font-size: medium;">W</span></b>hen I visited Qube
in Columbus, the executives there expressed the desire for “a bigger universe,”
a bigger city or cities in which to demonstrate Qube’s capabilities. One such city about to make a decision on a
cable system was Pittsburgh, and Warner wanted it. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcb2WAqFE7eHVSljxetzJopAZgQAIb11KshJ3BcatA8AcfK_SLC-W0e2zENJLgeJqcsmnb9okAkR9Mil24GuXLqDULNVdvBQxIkk4TV2wsznZxXihc_WuFonzqKROLhATB35t3qorIn5abHF-fPa7hzP3klArW3_vM6s1a32wLq919K5aB_w/s279/images%20(4).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="180" data-original-width="279" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcb2WAqFE7eHVSljxetzJopAZgQAIb11KshJ3BcatA8AcfK_SLC-W0e2zENJLgeJqcsmnb9okAkR9Mil24GuXLqDULNVdvBQxIkk4TV2wsznZxXihc_WuFonzqKROLhATB35t3qorIn5abHF-fPa7hzP3klArW3_vM6s1a32wLq919K5aB_w/s1600/images%20(4).jpg" width="279" /></a></div>But Pittsburgh had a number of suitors, and there was a
process. This is another feature of cable that has slipped into history: local
control. From the beginning, each
municipality had to decide on one cable company to provide service. There couldn’t be competing cable providers
in the same area, the argument went, because having more than one was
technically difficult, expensive and confusing, as supposedly discovered in the
days of competing telephone systems, each with its own wires. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> In the early days of cable, I learned in my research, the
awarding of cable contracts was sometimes, perhaps often, accomplished by the
tried and true system of bribery and graft.
There were so-called “whiskey franchises,” in which officials got a case
of Canadian Club in exchange for the sole right to wire their
municipality. Others were reputedly
more expensive—like a cool million.
Some local officials went to jail for graft, others learned to have themselves hired as
“consultants” for hefty fees. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwA5mAmQMyDBDw2S0DimRwhuby7gArxFdw-qZCnnSHM2loeemj0HteIJU4rcxwXx7NueoZxHmgi5sIkKTGsp9iiw-Kr8N2sKz1DtQxQGlzubb86cj6ftrPkEp6MyBlfZTXBGupxUq2rpLu478Fqolv0-r14vx5j7q0_LZ9_C70STGpUYRBDw/s1000/screenshot-2023-03-15-at-31854-pm-1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="666" data-original-width="1000" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwA5mAmQMyDBDw2S0DimRwhuby7gArxFdw-qZCnnSHM2loeemj0HteIJU4rcxwXx7NueoZxHmgi5sIkKTGsp9iiw-Kr8N2sKz1DtQxQGlzubb86cj6ftrPkEp6MyBlfZTXBGupxUq2rpLu478Fqolv0-r14vx5j7q0_LZ9_C70STGpUYRBDw/w400-h266/screenshot-2023-03-15-at-31854-pm-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> Local professional reporters told me that as far as they
could determine, the Pittsburgh process was clean. Pittsburgh had a cable
ordinance and a committee to evaluate suitors.
I spoke to the chair of that committee who was suspicious of Qube, its
expense and its insistence on control.
“But this is Pittsburgh—our neighborhoods, our hills, our winters,” he
said. “We know our city better than any company does. I think we know what we need.”<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> A sticking point was the public access channels. Cable systems were required to have them,
since they were considered “common carriers” under the law, owned by everyone.
(That same NYU Alternative Media Center was largely behind the adoption of this
practice.) But Qube didn’t want to cede
control of any of its channels.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]-->That negotiation went on past the time I finished my story and I’m not sure how it turned out. But in a way it didn't matter--soon the Supreme Court decided that cable systems weren’t common
carriers after all--they were corporate persons who could do what they
liked. Congress hurriedly passed a new
telecommunications law which said that municipalities “may” require public
access channels, with public control of them. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> In the years since, increasingly large cable companies have
managed to convince some municipalities that pubic access isn’t necessary. Where they exist, these channels aren’t
often lively or creative, and certainly not interactive. They cablecast city council meetings and
other official events open to the public, which public officials tend to like,
partly for the same reason that the only truly public television nationally are C-Span channels that mostly give air time to Senators and Representatives:
politicians love to be on TV. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> While there used to be debates in some municipalities before
franchises were awarded and even when they were up for renewal in 10 or 12
years (when companies can be held accountable for not living up to their
promises), I haven’t noticed any public discussion of renewal requirements for
years. Renewals seem depressingly
automatic. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJRf1g8A3kCJsVIp89TA5BBGRN4vXQZDLw2chWj2AP7Mdn04OekjJK6eUB9LetE_U3rkcVJpX0TurOp6N9vwgIscFai7jDSjvn-V37G8ut-FwLz64CO0n4ZMz_XdNQDlPl9opIQTH1RB0OoO6v0A_e-ai8IyB9FF4nGAuHALGPCc83AoJNRA/s480/berks.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="480" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJRf1g8A3kCJsVIp89TA5BBGRN4vXQZDLw2chWj2AP7Mdn04OekjJK6eUB9LetE_U3rkcVJpX0TurOp6N9vwgIscFai7jDSjvn-V37G8ut-FwLz64CO0n4ZMz_XdNQDlPl9opIQTH1RB0OoO6v0A_e-ai8IyB9FF4nGAuHALGPCc83AoJNRA/s320/berks.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Though Warner succeeded in wiring larger cities with the
Qube promise in subsequent years—including Pittsburgh—Qube itself never quite
caught on. There were privacy concerns
(people were quaintly resistant to their two-way responses being stored in the
Qubemasters’ computer) and continuing high costs. Its system of two-way television faded away.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Meanwhile, the Alternative Media Center’s Reading experiment
yielded what is now called Berks Community Television, thriving in the 21<sup>st</sup>
century.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Aspects of Qube did
influence cable television. It refined how pay-per-view might work, and it
developed programs—especially the shows for children-- that later cable
channels adapted. It also presaged commerce-driven shopping channels and program-length commercials styled as talk shows. But in several ways
it was more of a dress rehearsal for the Internet. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For example, shopping from home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few years after my visit to Columbus I was in Las Vegas
covering an International Council of Shopping Centers convention, where I
attended a session on electronic shopping.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Qube was mentioned but the presentation focused on an experimental
system in France that used a device hooked up to the telephone system.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> These retailers knew that electronic shopping was coming,
they just didn’t know when or how. A few years later there were home computers, and over the next decade or so the question was answered. By showing how home shopping might work, Qube was a kind of proof of concept for Internet commerce.</p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The public access interactive part of the Reading experiment didn’t influence
subsequent cable television much, but it did produce one dry run for Internet
systems like Zoom. That Berks experiment
modeled the possibility of local, small scale, face-to-face participation, if
not participatory democracy, which may have mitigated the vicious incivility
that became the norm in anonymous and faceless Facebook and other online
venues. </p><p class="MsoNormal"> In any case, cable television’s
potential to be much more than centralized, corporate television has largely
failed. Its fading legacy in this
regard seems bequeathed to the corporate giants battling for streaming market
share. The small screen (which is not so small anymore) is one big Marvel
movie. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq17RhVMvcbhe5Y7OpHLeLuSNa_sO7q4Fn97TfdeVz1rDxx9pT5IjcMQkx8ezHXqSJMlEWAFu5D4NYCdS_y5AUTG65dcHc8xn2F8J7FVv9Z0N_MVSu-YFDmOIRycPxcs0CTgtdsRZ-2OuGq54Rc7JRB1kc2bqIFTDkBxCqoiQDuuDZCwRVkg/s347/hqdefault%20(1).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="347" data-original-width="320" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq17RhVMvcbhe5Y7OpHLeLuSNa_sO7q4Fn97TfdeVz1rDxx9pT5IjcMQkx8ezHXqSJMlEWAFu5D4NYCdS_y5AUTG65dcHc8xn2F8J7FVv9Z0N_MVSu-YFDmOIRycPxcs0CTgtdsRZ-2OuGq54Rc7JRB1kc2bqIFTDkBxCqoiQDuuDZCwRVkg/w184-h200/hqdefault%20(1).jpg" width="184" /></a></div>By the 1980s, cable assumed the shape it maintained for
decades. The local cable system—more and more part of a conglomerate—offered
packages of local broadcast channels (UHF and VHF) and a few from afar, the
growing number of cable channels, and the premium channels like HBO that ran
recent movies and the occasional big name pop concert. There might be a public access channel,
often with little programming on it.
There were a few cable news channels—mostly just CNN Headline News at
first (Lynn Russell was mesmerizing) and a couple of channels that told you
what was on the other channels.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The premium
channels became known for softcore porn and for surprising Hollywood by making
some of its theatrical rejects into hits. I discovered a few myself (for
example, the lovely Jane Seymour/ Christopher Reeve <i>Somewhere In Time</i>,
and the paradigm of this category, <i>Eddie and the Cruisers</i>), and was glad
for the opportunity. However, my most
enduring cable memory of this early period is falling asleep one night to a
movie I’d turned on halfway through, until I was awakened by a familiar voice:
it was an old friend and actor from college, Ric Newman. By the time the voice
registered, he was gone from the screen.
I had to stay awake for the credits to make sure I hadn’t been
hallucinating. (I hadn’t.) </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtmTG4BuvUUji7heNeR93k3vRnQgAlvNtOMl_-Sab4izTBNgExvRhtAUPWh7SusT8Y9HfnpqVXMM6GMfD4Qc9wGSJ0Y7_EC7UdiHS27cpj14xyg0-Kihk-_KmIYvUv9q8mg9dmpqQW8VXAHUBsiUHqUK0vyeQkxbVdyp1QrdkN7dG5sPJ38w/s300/images%20(5).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtmTG4BuvUUji7heNeR93k3vRnQgAlvNtOMl_-Sab4izTBNgExvRhtAUPWh7SusT8Y9HfnpqVXMM6GMfD4Qc9wGSJ0Y7_EC7UdiHS27cpj14xyg0-Kihk-_KmIYvUv9q8mg9dmpqQW8VXAHUBsiUHqUK0vyeQkxbVdyp1QrdkN7dG5sPJ38w/s1600/images%20(5).jpg" width="300" /></a></div> I had cable when I moved to Pittsburgh, and it enabled me to
watch Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls games on a Chicago channel. I watched C-Span, especially the heroic Brian Lamb and Book
TV. I think it was a public access channel that showed a lengthy and enlightening discussion on adult children of alcoholics by a couple of those adult children. I didn’t have premium channels but
didn’t miss them. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> In our corner of California, corporate cable became more and
more expensive and oppressive, and like many others, I cut the cable. So I didn’t see the run of “viral” HBO
series around 2007, though I wasn’t really interested. I saw a few episodes of AMC’s <i>Mad Men</i>,
and that was enough—I could see it was going to be an endless soap opera. I even passed on <i>The Sopranos</i>—it
seemed an extension of <i>The Godfather</i>, and by then I was angrily tired of
seeing Italians portrayed only as Mafia gangsters. Mostly what I missed were new <i>Doctor Who</i> episodes, by then
on BBC America.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Eventually the cable
company got its vengeance, as Internet providers folded or were bought up, and
there were only two left: our old friends The Phone Company ( AT&T) and The Cable Company
(itself bought up and its name changed twice.) </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Then once the cable company—eventually called Suddenlink for
awhile, now Optimum—dominated Internet market share as well as the waning cable monopoly, it boosted prices into the
stratosphere, and its customer service is nonexistent. No one can get them on the phone (not that
this is too unusual in dealing with today’s corporate barons.) It deals with
customers with sarcastic arrogance.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> For most viewers,
cable is the source for streaming, which at the moment is undergoing a shakeout
that has the potential of reducing its offerings dramatically. Monopoly cable could well be the
future. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Despite all this, television in the 70s and beyond helped me
through some dubious times, which is the subject of the next and last episodes. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-4212599551728821342023-05-28T21:53:00.003-07:002023-05-28T21:59:57.264-07:00TV and Me: Home Movies<p><i> Television and I grew up together. This is our story. Latest in a<a href="http://dreamingup.blogspot.com/search/label/TV%20and%20Me"> series</a>.</i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4-ZYUrKnWTZxxP7QG6boBAi8GXWahbKpZQr_ZG4JAwvMkHWtWnGx6p-KmMEY4C1GnxW3v6DBrGWJb4Pn-Q6uJsrFg_lT-z7pOcywiUQSbZtRNo1qvzijy1sCmS3YD59FVWjLHdHKDjyp1fQSJ4UQQkaN73JoFyNx5FU-qoMuO22eDD_b1JA/s710/laurence-olivier-merle-oberon-in-wuthering-heights.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="536" data-original-width="710" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4-ZYUrKnWTZxxP7QG6boBAi8GXWahbKpZQr_ZG4JAwvMkHWtWnGx6p-KmMEY4C1GnxW3v6DBrGWJb4Pn-Q6uJsrFg_lT-z7pOcywiUQSbZtRNo1qvzijy1sCmS3YD59FVWjLHdHKDjyp1fQSJ4UQQkaN73JoFyNx5FU-qoMuO22eDD_b1JA/w400-h303/laurence-olivier-merle-oberon-in-wuthering-heights.png" width="400" /></a></div>In the early to mid 1970s I lived in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, at first freelance writing, then as the book review editor and
finally managing editor of the arts section (half the weekly paper) for the
Boston Phoenix, before I returned to freelancing, this time for national
magazines. For much of that time I was
writing about new books, new records and concerts, new movies, new plays and
only occasionally about television. (Although Mort Sahl read aloud from my
piece on the Dick Cavett show, on the Dick Cavett show.) So I wasn’t watching much.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Most of my TV viewing in those years was late at night on a
black and white set with a broken channel changer, and apart from news, PBS and
Cavett I mainly watched movies. There
was a long tradition of movies on television, especially in the late hours.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Movies were the easiest programs for television to broadcast
when it began, but Hollywood resisted feeding this threatening upstart. Movies appeared anyway in the early 1950s,
mostly made in the 30s from hand-to-mouth studios like Republic and Monogram,
plus British imports. By 1955 or so,
the major studios—now getting into television production themselves—released
movies made as late as 1948. Eventually
there might be only a few years between theatrical release and a TV spot.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWc4pYwTsHPy62wmRf1q6tu0QgDLfT4BE-Da2yzn83l3LKUbv5VCPwyFmGayIDou9W44cEAxiU59j9HURZTiukQa6uxmzGUMeShot_qOUOiuM6ngYVaHqdVqdAMis3ikBeFs7yiaI48dIWWmzU0y3cg5d2Kd-HewGLMw9kszfa0LklZeS4MA/s493/EtsDNj5WgAQKnPT.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="493" data-original-width="483" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWc4pYwTsHPy62wmRf1q6tu0QgDLfT4BE-Da2yzn83l3LKUbv5VCPwyFmGayIDou9W44cEAxiU59j9HURZTiukQa6uxmzGUMeShot_qOUOiuM6ngYVaHqdVqdAMis3ikBeFs7yiaI48dIWWmzU0y3cg5d2Kd-HewGLMw9kszfa0LklZeS4MA/s320/EtsDNj5WgAQKnPT.jpg" width="314" /></a></div> As mentioned earlier in this series, movie cartoons, comedy
shorts (included silent ones), faded western movies and serials like Flash
Gordon were staples of Saturday morning TV for kids even in the early 50s. But
in some ways, movies weren’t ideal. TV screens were small, picture resolution
wasn’t good and reception was often iffy—this is one reason that most early TV
shows were brightly lit and shot in medium and close-up.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> These viewing problems also prompted the TV editors of
movies to discard darker scenes and wide shots first, as they looked for
footage to snip and replace with commercials. But they weren’t consistent—I
recall the Saturday morning boredom of trying to watch galloping cowboys
chasing each other in the dark. Murky
viewing wasn’t caused only by television deficiencies—scratchy prints, inept
editing and poor projection weren’t uncommon.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Things had improved somewhat by the mid to late 1950s, when
more than a thousand movies were available to appear at all times of the day
and night, mostly presented by local stations but also from networks. One
survey suggested that in 1955 alone, a quarter of television programming was
comprised of old movies.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxSefb2HGhYD_65sDT2kdLXZZU443s7mgwnE7pGd_z7R6z-VR-mTsCp0PDfsvXn4kTJebI7KXgOJmqoqLc9yIhczJNZ8QcfxYUHxvMs5PQ7sXw04sRfHewfFlAaRFzcatPCZlBqGQ6AGTJmgqLHeuM1wgQGTfAVo6DN79eesnQkrENci5xfw/s1886/to%20be.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1425" data-original-width="1886" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxSefb2HGhYD_65sDT2kdLXZZU443s7mgwnE7pGd_z7R6z-VR-mTsCp0PDfsvXn4kTJebI7KXgOJmqoqLc9yIhczJNZ8QcfxYUHxvMs5PQ7sXw04sRfHewfFlAaRFzcatPCZlBqGQ6AGTJmgqLHeuM1wgQGTfAVo6DN79eesnQkrENci5xfw/w400-h303/to%20be.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Carole Lombard in "To Be or Not To Be" (1942)<br />released to TV in 1955</td></tr></tbody></table> So I saw many old movies for the first time on television,
including many I’ve never seen in any other way. That I saw any movies at all before the age of 7 or so is due
entirely to television. I couldn’t necessarily follow a complicated plot or
dialogue at an early age, but I generally found something to like.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Until I was 10 or so, I only saw a few movies on the big
screen: Disney films at the theatre near my grandparents in Youngwood, and my
father took me to see a few at the Manos or the Strand in Greensburg (I recall
a Martin and Lewis comedy, and <i>Killers From Space</i>), before my classmates
and I were bussed to Pittsburgh to see the latest Biblical epic (<i>The Ten
Commandments</i>, etc.) at the big Cinerama theatre. Eventually I walked every week with neighbor friends to Saturday
matinees at the Manos, a faded movie palace just on the near side of Main
Street in Greensburg.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> But thanks to television I could see dozens of old movies
from the time I was 4, as long as they were broadcast before my bedtime. When
they were made didn’t enter into my consciousness—for a kid, everything is
either now, soon or in the indiscriminate past—but once again, I had an
accidental, sideways education in movie history at an early age, partly because
of the studio ban on newer films.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The movies shown on television included major features with
star actors, but most of them—especially at first—were serials (or compilations
of serial episodes) and what were known as B movies.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> To tempt people back to theatres as the Depression seemed to
ease in 1934, some exhibitors began showing two movies for the price of
one. In late 1935 the two largest
theatre chains announced this would be the policy in all their venues across
America. The double feature was born, a
movie institution that lasted for more than 30 years. At first, however, the bonus movie was slightly different: almost
always shorter, and shot on a smaller budget with lesser stars (some on the way
up, and some on the way out.) To
contrast them with the big budget, big-star “A” films, they were known in the
industry as “B” movies, to be shown before the main feature. </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8JIBP-QaOsqTu8XVnX5YQw5X_pd8LyI2omWqQWVqy9-ykc5G9oYS0lp-WcUxvy21uPkbgX5x2ITSGwi3CA4l_UMDcARkHEK0OBBfcgHmqmijfOSWdMf7up-AFEVQtBH2ZewTj0Anj-2ssNv0X7JyXrtE6LoIauQqk4Akle6_2Y0ryxjJvzw/s648/Bulldog_Drummond's_Bride_(1939)_1.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="469" data-original-width="648" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8JIBP-QaOsqTu8XVnX5YQw5X_pd8LyI2omWqQWVqy9-ykc5G9oYS0lp-WcUxvy21uPkbgX5x2ITSGwi3CA4l_UMDcARkHEK0OBBfcgHmqmijfOSWdMf7up-AFEVQtBH2ZewTj0Anj-2ssNv0X7JyXrtE6LoIauQqk4Akle6_2Y0ryxjJvzw/s320/Bulldog_Drummond's_Bride_(1939)_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Bulldog Drummond's Bride" 1939</td></tr></tbody></table>The B movies were among the first to populate
television. They were cheaper to
acquire, and being shorter, they accommodated commercials more easily. Most
were genre films—westerns (predominantly) and crime stories, plus war movies,
romantic comedies, melodramas and musicals.
The often-strange Bulldog Drummond crime series was an early entry, and
the Charlie Chan series. Perhaps even the Torchy Blaine movies (a 1930s woman reporter
who became the prototype for Lois Lane.)
On a somewhat higher level, the Sherlock Holmes series with Basil
Rathbone and Nigel Bruce made its first appearances in 1954. I remember seeing Rathbone as my first Holmes. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> Drummond and other B movies had noticeably quick rhythms,
and that must have appealed to me. (As
Superman in the series, George Reeves made the quick movements of serial and B
movie heroes, though in those films they were probably augmented by speeding up
the camera to enhance the effect—and shorten the movie’s length.) I adopted quick movement in my play after
TV, and I loved running. There was lots
of running in B movies.</p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBr_MFZtG1Y7asdM-3PLscl52U6PalSWomnE2_pt5wv4GRkcSCw3kDmI07GUGDvQAsy9XooDmSy_9Mce_6ueT-Wjh0UMq2Fguz4H01Um7XEkRE9l0imrsraLd1Sbg04Oux-8CZG-ctJSTN6rLgYJC0AB4S2jCaTugWZtvupZhf4s_qHMEoXw/s400/Tarzan1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="319" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBr_MFZtG1Y7asdM-3PLscl52U6PalSWomnE2_pt5wv4GRkcSCw3kDmI07GUGDvQAsy9XooDmSy_9Mce_6ueT-Wjh0UMq2Fguz4H01Um7XEkRE9l0imrsraLd1Sbg04Oux-8CZG-ctJSTN6rLgYJC0AB4S2jCaTugWZtvupZhf4s_qHMEoXw/s320/Tarzan1.jpg" width="255" /></a></div> At Dumont, the network that at first scheduled the most
movies, both B movies and a few A features were often grouped by genres under
banners like Frontier Theatre (westerns) and Adventure Theatre (Tarzan,
etc.) Since the only Pittsburgh station
in the early 1950s was Dumont’s cash cow, I could see a lot of these movies.
While my attention to the westerns wavered, the Tarzan movies, with action in
the relatively contained jungle, were fascinating. There seemed to be a lot of World War II movies on TV,
though Hollywood was still making them for theatres in the 50s, along with
Korean war films, which we sometimes saw at Saturday matinees later in my childhood. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> I’m naming some movies and actors I recall for two reasons:
they comprise part of my cultural life history, and they became part of the
cultural literacy of my generation-- in both cases mostly because of
television.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> I saw some film
stars of the 1940s on television programs, and perhaps recognized others (like
James Cagney, Peter Lorre, Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson) from their
cartoon parodies or variety show impressionists before I saw their movies. But
eventually I would see many of those movies on television, if nowhere
else. I probably caught glimpses of
their gangster films as a child. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsuwFOOh4Vj1-LRdy6lkJ0nzlHR_wA9Ub86h2DZlsDk42tf4N8ee7Ieql6vpMDPi9K4mQAeAoRvkjn4GOycAhpXjE_3irXtEYDa5vyKaAIHj2h_yHYY8bWu3TvK18bvaLzk7DHt3sFXYff3fSQkbkqEuALU6xmHc7wFXtK4eKc3zGZEGgvlQ/s1280/apiwcgs6r__01679.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="952" data-original-width="1280" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsuwFOOh4Vj1-LRdy6lkJ0nzlHR_wA9Ub86h2DZlsDk42tf4N8ee7Ieql6vpMDPi9K4mQAeAoRvkjn4GOycAhpXjE_3irXtEYDa5vyKaAIHj2h_yHYY8bWu3TvK18bvaLzk7DHt3sFXYff3fSQkbkqEuALU6xmHc7wFXtK4eKc3zGZEGgvlQ/s320/apiwcgs6r__01679.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>There are others however I knew directly from their movies,
like Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant (at least one of the films they did
together, <i>Bringing Up Baby,</i> was televised in the mid-50s, and I seem to
recall seeing Cary Grant in <i>Arsenic and Old Lace</i>.)<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> I knew Jimmy Stewart from <i>Harvey</i> and <i>It’s A
Wonderful Life,</i> which television made into a Christmas movie. I knew Spencer Tracy, perhaps from one of
his films with Hepburn but more likely from his role as Father Flanagan in <i>Boys Town</i>, a
portrayal extolled by the Sisters at school.
And I certainly got an indelible impression of Henry Fonda when I saw <i>The
Grapes of Wrath</i> on TV, an unforgettable movie.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie_Dr-EidE9_pIkJnesWr9S6UAoj3wqJpWosvVZcR0E3fhcFzSfvpxVJcnOTjiS_P2b-DOJFPYWDWWLO5ElSMcbTSQfa4XJbCIBQYGmMBFlawBFNR5vaDqgRSTscnFfahI9vB75zN-q6xJZevZMymrRGn2sFkIXKkX99e83y2sqBgy4odgIA/s768/vlcsnap-2011-09-02-18h34m56.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie_Dr-EidE9_pIkJnesWr9S6UAoj3wqJpWosvVZcR0E3fhcFzSfvpxVJcnOTjiS_P2b-DOJFPYWDWWLO5ElSMcbTSQfa4XJbCIBQYGmMBFlawBFNR5vaDqgRSTscnFfahI9vB75zN-q6xJZevZMymrRGn2sFkIXKkX99e83y2sqBgy4odgIA/w400-h300/vlcsnap-2011-09-02-18h34m56.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Glenn Miller (top left), sax/vocals Tex Beneke<br />(bottom right) with singer Marion Hutton and<br />the Modernaires</td></tr></tbody></table> I recognized Fred
Astaire, so I must have caught a dance or two from the Astaire and Rogers RKO
films or his other musicals that were broadcast. I was likely to have watched parts of the movies featuring
Glenn Miller (<i>Orchestra Wives</i> or <i>Sun Valley Serenade</i>) if I
happened on one, since I knew my mother had a particular fondness for Glenn
Miller’s music, which I knew from records.
I’d seen Shirley Temple movies at an early age, but as with all these
films, my attention was inconsistent, especially when I couldn’t follow the
story. By third and fourth grade my
attention span improved, along with the ability to follow a more talky plot.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Among the many movies I likely saw on TV, there were classic
films of American and English directors I wouldn’t recognize the names of until
later. Until I left for college, this
was virtually the only way I could see them. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTKM6ytx2gAf4AW3nDYCUL2rRlvwhF_Xmpl7tO-5siFSkLvzwZ3WhYvBtrbGZCua6Llfm81VLRwcpKXt3vYloOEUHeYGaOZnF3aOvSeDcYB7QSl4ihzvuxRIdOXxtc94I1_BTKae726TZ9IqOgzhDAVgrSIY8IQxcz3jkGy2zNjYG8luylMQ/s1440/p2156_i_v9_ab.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1080" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTKM6ytx2gAf4AW3nDYCUL2rRlvwhF_Xmpl7tO-5siFSkLvzwZ3WhYvBtrbGZCua6Llfm81VLRwcpKXt3vYloOEUHeYGaOZnF3aOvSeDcYB7QSl4ihzvuxRIdOXxtc94I1_BTKae726TZ9IqOgzhDAVgrSIY8IQxcz3jkGy2zNjYG8luylMQ/w150-h200/p2156_i_v9_ab.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Mrs Miniver"</td></tr></tbody></table>I saw my first Hitchcock films on TV. An early entry to TV was the 1940 Hollywood
production of <i>Foreign Correspondent.</i> I seem to recall one of his early
British films, <i>The Lady Vanishes</i>, as well as other British films of the
30s and World War II era. I saw British actors in American films or
coproductions--I distinctly recall seeing <i>Mrs. Miniver</i> on TV, starring
Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon (who I recognized in <i>Forbidden Planet</i> on
the silver screen.) Perhaps I even saw
Greer Garson play Elizabeth Bennet against Lawrence Olivier’s Darcy in the 1940
production of <i>Pride and Prejudice</i>. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> I certainly saw Oliver on TV in <i>Wuthering Heights</i> and
Hitchcock’s <i>Rebecca</i>, probably in high school. And though it wasn’t until college, I saw <i>Saturday Night and
Sunday Morning </i>and other 50s and 60s British films for the first time on
television, when I knew to look for them. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfniIXsicaHLSslQBIzwIlJrDGd1XdcwBvqb6krFqkSKBk5n1OrTWHy5a4YZcOLbcGYGgsc2UpzXsmukXTHkvRpw5v24lkdsMtC-Q4u5cM6cFgiVIrFN4anS0MmMggT8SC_gv9nf7guUU3o6IA8NlQ04vvrqxGoOBGQsDgr5nv-70IklRSKQ/s400/christmascarol51_jacobmarley_fc_470x264_112220190849.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="400" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfniIXsicaHLSslQBIzwIlJrDGd1XdcwBvqb6krFqkSKBk5n1OrTWHy5a4YZcOLbcGYGgsc2UpzXsmukXTHkvRpw5v24lkdsMtC-Q4u5cM6cFgiVIrFN4anS0MmMggT8SC_gv9nf7guUU3o6IA8NlQ04vvrqxGoOBGQsDgr5nv-70IklRSKQ/s320/christmascarol51_jacobmarley_fc_470x264_112220190849.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sims in "A Christmas Carol"</td></tr></tbody></table>At Christmastime as a child I remember seeing the Alistair
Sims version of A <i>Christmas Carol</i>.
I remember my excitement at seeing an old Laurel and Hardy holiday movie
in which human sized wooden soldiers come to life (<i>Babes in Toyland</i>,
1934.)<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <br /> Apart from the genre
groupings, the more important pictures (or at least the A features) with the
biggest stars were seen on prime time or weekend afternoons under marquees like
The Million Dollar Movie. I also recall the Sunday afternoon movie on KDKA, introduced
by legendary Pittsburgh Post-Gazette movie and entertainment columnist, Harold
V. Cohen, who also provided background during commercial breaks. (Later that function fell to probably
Pittsburgh’s most famous radio voice of that era, Rege Cordic.) I don’t recall
the movies or what Mr. Cohen said, but I did get the idea that movies could be
taken seriously, and that real people made them. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> So it’s entirely possible that I saw a Charlie Chaplin
feature there (Cohen was a Chaplin buff), or even Orson Welles films like <i>The
Magnificent Ambersons.</i> (However, it
was at the Orson Welles theatre that I saw <i>Citizen Kane</i>, and remember
that as the first time. Or the first
several times.) </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxWm5OLTX5tcY6pksoYa51VFBMudyJTRsAUU5KLotk3ioY6uDlbjaEKUZtHG4sYmBuYsDXNUe6o_t-v-UP1ZT9pox7wN8LeD7lQTjQlYg1QWYdvGUxjXVzNbLOyBJ5oy6Wr1yJg3HLe3xrQiVNAM--KaTOIwMBmD8P5FlQMWHtLxJtsuJLCg/s694/swing%20shift.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="694" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxWm5OLTX5tcY6pksoYa51VFBMudyJTRsAUU5KLotk3ioY6uDlbjaEKUZtHG4sYmBuYsDXNUe6o_t-v-UP1ZT9pox7wN8LeD7lQTjQlYg1QWYdvGUxjXVzNbLOyBJ5oy6Wr1yJg3HLe3xrQiVNAM--KaTOIwMBmD8P5FlQMWHtLxJtsuJLCg/s320/swing%20shift.jpg" width="231" /></a></div>So there were plenty for me to see, though the bulk of
movies were shown late at night. For
years, they were just about the only programming past the eleven p.m.
news. They often went by the title—or
were referred to colloquially as—the Late Show. And then the Late Late Show.
At one point back in the Dumont days our Pittsburgh station showed
movies all night on Swing Shift Theatre.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> In 1963 the third Pittsburgh station (Channel 11, NBC)
premiered the local Chiller Theatre with “Chilly Billy” Cardille (the prototype
for SCTV’s parody Monster Chiller Horror Theatre by Joe Flaherty, a Pittsburgh
native), but shows featuring horror movies had been around for awhile by then.
Though I first saw the Frankenstein and Dracula movies on TV, I wasn’t as
fascinated with horror movies as many of my schoolmates (they were especially
fashionable in 1957-58, or my sixth grade.)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCFF7AMz8rAwUccP1fswiyNZ_-ywL11up4PYHQo_F7YPIgf-5uoLZUVBYPGKB655q_DtFjzCHkEw9rQ8u4ctqRyQcSXlO7ERKP-7-PAUCVGfr_ZF247I0EQwyrotrKDJYUOj8VzjnHd0XjfAmNZgbawQLHE0gidR2Cqv4DaP6yfRAFxNkh1A/s670/MV5BMjIwNDEyNTE1Ml5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNjkyMjM4NA@@._V1_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="670" data-original-width="531" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCFF7AMz8rAwUccP1fswiyNZ_-ywL11up4PYHQo_F7YPIgf-5uoLZUVBYPGKB655q_DtFjzCHkEw9rQ8u4ctqRyQcSXlO7ERKP-7-PAUCVGfr_ZF247I0EQwyrotrKDJYUOj8VzjnHd0XjfAmNZgbawQLHE0gidR2Cqv4DaP6yfRAFxNkh1A/s320/MV5BMjIwNDEyNTE1Ml5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNjkyMjM4NA@@._V1_.jpg" width="254" /></a></div>But I loved science fiction. Since I’ve now seen most of the 1950s s/f classics on the big
screen, I’m not entirely sure which ones I first saw on television, or at a
Saturday matinee, or at the Orson Welles Cinema in Cambridge (I wrote about their first sci-fi festivals in the Boston Phoenix under the title “It Came From
the Orson Welles.” My friends at the Welles turned the phrase into a t-shirt. This became an annual festival that outlived the Welles itself.)<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> I’m guessing <i>The Day The Earth Stood Still </i>is one I
did see on TV first. But I’m sure about
several classics made in the UK, especially since I’ve seen them only on small
screens: <i>The Day The Earth Caught Fire </i>and <i>Five Million Years to
Earth</i> remain two of the best of that era. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSxeUcHdsgflW-mngPIqGYVZZsfR2Bwtf9wt0bUKaTny1eQGjySbGo_sINl5uq6WSoMBzaHTXvD7p0zsqA4rWUf5GAm3s3hrZWHBcxt0GAWzAro83P9GcshjOzQI6OtKJQldfZtE-jiQfgaPIq-2gYm6ZwpNuqhSqBcC_3juN9EWbVaTohmw/s700/King-Kong-Empire-State-Building-Screenshot.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="700" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSxeUcHdsgflW-mngPIqGYVZZsfR2Bwtf9wt0bUKaTny1eQGjySbGo_sINl5uq6WSoMBzaHTXvD7p0zsqA4rWUf5GAm3s3hrZWHBcxt0GAWzAro83P9GcshjOzQI6OtKJQldfZtE-jiQfgaPIq-2gYm6ZwpNuqhSqBcC_3juN9EWbVaTohmw/s320/King-Kong-Empire-State-Building-Screenshot.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /> I also saw the original <i>King Kong</i> and <i>Mighty Joe Young</i>
first on TV, enough times to notice, when I saw <i>King Kong</i> on the silver
screen, that the first part of it (the preparation for the journey) was
routinely cut on TV to fit the time slot and make room for more commercials.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> I saw Olivier’s <i>Richard III</i> on TV, but when I saw it
again at a screening at the Westmoreland County Museum of Art, I was dazzled by
the prologue that I didn’t remember. Possibly it, too, was cut, so on TV the
movie began with Olivier’s “Now is the winter of our discontent…” speech. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such cutting was a
major flaw.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Apart from commercials disturbing
the mood and narrative drive, missing or truncated scenes hurt the film and at
times rendered it incomprehensible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Seeing these old films whole could be a revelation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZLltdFJPTHYxv9IlyAPr8sl7Nsf9O9bXOUUFoPegXkciu5BgLR4hBU5JZlreTEOw9MciWwYyDgYDItR3Ngylgx5NtGvE_nHOaqptiH-JY9FRuNxLRN3YkwTxEB95z2sO45tTnK-yufJhJSkD8FhyzEtZAe3PokR6BZu5yj0AsLTKno5S1jg/s1000/actual-main-wizard-of-ozj.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="666" data-original-width="1000" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZLltdFJPTHYxv9IlyAPr8sl7Nsf9O9bXOUUFoPegXkciu5BgLR4hBU5JZlreTEOw9MciWwYyDgYDItR3Ngylgx5NtGvE_nHOaqptiH-JY9FRuNxLRN3YkwTxEB95z2sO45tTnK-yufJhJSkD8FhyzEtZAe3PokR6BZu5yj0AsLTKno5S1jg/w400-h266/actual-main-wizard-of-ozj.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>By the early 1960s, Hollywood studios loosened up on showing
their 1950s movies, and their big hits from previous years. By this time some
movies were being broadcast in color. The first showings of <i>The Wizard of Oz</i>
(beginning in 1956) were big deals. However, most people still had black and
white sets so the switch from sepia to Technicolor within that film didn’t have
quite the same impact until most homes got color sets beginning in the mid
1960s.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The networks responded to this new availability of more
recent movies—especially color films-- with prime time movie slots: NBC had Saturday
Night at the Movies, then adding the Monday Night Movie in 1963. By 1966 there
was the ABC Wednesday Night Movie and the CBS Friday Night Movie, and so on.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Movies became so popular that networks began to make their
own, the so-called “made for television” movies, which constituted a genre of
their own. With some conspicuous exceptions (like <i>The Day After</i>), I
don’t count many of them as movies. In
any case, real movies and TV movies became a major part of prime time into the
70s and 80s. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoymj_zLQGOWUg11VtwLk78s7Mm68R79vWe4uvX8h5nm3NYdX7k2NIEF3vwvRLYzX2UHO7kld66VAFwrhUrWFtKpIuYQAE8zIkuHGgqaUSLvyuymkaRq3k5oOpADiWiY26pvRWEXq2Y2MxoulhhbJX41udTDho9FsDfyMEtNvRv_AtAifsbg/s870/1956_1984_001-edmond-obrien.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="551" data-original-width="870" height="127" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoymj_zLQGOWUg11VtwLk78s7Mm68R79vWe4uvX8h5nm3NYdX7k2NIEF3vwvRLYzX2UHO7kld66VAFwrhUrWFtKpIuYQAE8zIkuHGgqaUSLvyuymkaRq3k5oOpADiWiY26pvRWEXq2Y2MxoulhhbJX41udTDho9FsDfyMEtNvRv_AtAifsbg/w200-h127/1956_1984_001-edmond-obrien.jpg" width="200" /></a></div> I do have a few indelible memories of movies I first saw on
TV at some point: The 1956 Edmund O’Brien version of Orwell’s <i>Nineteen Eighty-Four</i> which I saw in high
school; the Ernest Borgnine movie version of <i>Marty</i>, which was one of
those primetime network movies. I
recall that we happened to be at my grandmother’s when I saw it. <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixLqgMR5MqmfSPJJUzuzluxeqU_jAn1-h9rq6kRjDqUVI7lrdgW7ZGvn2WEmdXh0MbRfR34GQFsDyVpwgEublPhLwwCXjUWd-imP6YMWk5AR_P152frGt22Fy91LOAAxUc_-P4ckmR24VgAT3xQs_UWaXSuyRYajpxpEGXgyY2q0ETH5s4PA/s554/parisblues.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="438" data-original-width="554" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixLqgMR5MqmfSPJJUzuzluxeqU_jAn1-h9rq6kRjDqUVI7lrdgW7ZGvn2WEmdXh0MbRfR34GQFsDyVpwgEublPhLwwCXjUWd-imP6YMWk5AR_P152frGt22Fy91LOAAxUc_-P4ckmR24VgAT3xQs_UWaXSuyRYajpxpEGXgyY2q0ETH5s4PA/s320/parisblues.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Others include <i>Go, Man, Go,</i> the Harlem Globetrotters
movie with a very young Sidney Poitier, and Poitier again with Paul Newman,
Joanne Woodward and Diahann Carroll (as well as Louis Armstrong) in <i>Paris
Blues</i>, directed by Martin Ritt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Newman and Poitier played expatriate jazz musicians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the Newman and Woodward characters
wanted to return to the states, the Poitier character didn’t: he felt free of
American racism in Paris.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An eye-opener.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> I was probably in high school when I saw the 1959 Gregory
Peck film about F. Scott Fitzgerald<i>, Beloved Infidel, </i>and in college
when I was taken with the 1962 Jason Robards film of Fitzgerald’s <i>Tender Is
The Night</i>. I recall being
especially moved by seeing the 1959 film about the aftermath of a nuclear war, <i>On
the Beach</i> on television, though it’s possible I saw it first at a theatre.
It also starred Gregory Peck, with Ava Gardner and Fred Astaire.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> I saw both the <i>Glenn Miller Story</i> (Jimmy Stewart,
1954) and the <i>Benny Goodman Story</i> (Steve Allen, 1956) on TV in the 60s,
and later taped them from TV to see several times since. Among the many other biographical films I saw on TV, the most powerful was probably <i>The Life of Emile Zola</i> (1937) starring Paul Muni, with its revelatory scenes exposing prejudice in the Dreyfus affair.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheNqEKAsGbvqMsnwdPg_Pi5lB7yPSbdO2oevYuLCuA3M2LGcAzwteZEq_fAnPnfsWCeamdx4ezgjyPq_u6dRrbAk2F--pm62qW2F0T6oHX0wlkC9DkzBVPZaKUtT6CGH7x8-e418CTGHKcmMtR_LA9DHESsxa9NxVzUcFpVDd7_XG5PBTK8Q/s230/images%20(1).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="230" data-original-width="219" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheNqEKAsGbvqMsnwdPg_Pi5lB7yPSbdO2oevYuLCuA3M2LGcAzwteZEq_fAnPnfsWCeamdx4ezgjyPq_u6dRrbAk2F--pm62qW2F0T6oHX0wlkC9DkzBVPZaKUtT6CGH7x8-e418CTGHKcmMtR_LA9DHESsxa9NxVzUcFpVDd7_XG5PBTK8Q/s1600/images%20(1).jpg" width="219" /></a></div> <b><span style="font-size: medium;">B</span></b>y the 1970s I was in fact interested in old movies,
learning about directors and cinematographers and so on. So at the Orson Welles
and other repertory theatres in Cambridge I saw again (and this time, whole)
movies I’d dimly encountered on TV. I also had learned enough about film
history to know which movies I wanted to see when they appeared in the TV
listings.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> So while I might watch whatever was on the late show after
an exhausting day and evening at the Phoenix and some work-related outing
afterwards, I also scheduled viewings of particular movies I hadn’t yet
seen. Watching movies on TV could be
frustrating, broken up by blocks of commercials and often cut down to make time
for even more ads. But you could also watch them from bed.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Once when I was back freelancing, I decided to see how many
movies I could watch in one day. At
that time, the Orson Welles Cinema had three screens, and on Saturdays they had
a special film or two in the morning, then their regular rotation the rest of
the day (usually a double feature per screen), and at least one midnight movie.
For various reasons I could see movies for free there at the time, and so I
spent one Saturday seeing eight films (though I might have snuck out to see one
at another of the three other theatres within walking distance.) After the midnight shows I went home and
watched two more movies on television for a total of ten. After which I was sick in bed for at least a
week. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxmAnyRiznGpbqg5aPrneP5blsJcMRcAl9g2X32NgmD1GVnxry-AC09LtAAff-jfKcT2USWvYM73XYUel1HEjPki6hHFpjd7KPRmNZjwGvtkbUlp9T8IZh5t6dDuWJzjK8kUlk-n0soMePUXtPH1TyAw4arqE345eNy8XIeHZ1xXY9XZDrJw/s537/Cassavetes_Faces%20(1).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="537" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxmAnyRiznGpbqg5aPrneP5blsJcMRcAl9g2X32NgmD1GVnxry-AC09LtAAff-jfKcT2USWvYM73XYUel1HEjPki6hHFpjd7KPRmNZjwGvtkbUlp9T8IZh5t6dDuWJzjK8kUlk-n0soMePUXtPH1TyAw4arqE345eNy8XIeHZ1xXY9XZDrJw/s320/Cassavetes_Faces%20(1).jpg" width="320" /></a></div>There is nothing like seeing a great movie on the big screen
of a movie theatre, and I’m grateful I had the opportunity to see many that
way, either first run or later. In Cambridge especially, I had the additional
experience of seeing directors and actors in person, along with their
movies. In Boston I saw an advance
screening of what is now regarded as a masterpiece<i>, A Woman Under the
Influence,</i> featuring an intense and heartrending performance by Gena
Rowlands, and when the lights came up, there was Gena Rowlands standing in
front of the screen, together with the director (and her husband) John
Cassavettes. It was an amazing, almost ecstatic moment: the fulfillment of two fantasies--seeing someone step down from the screen into real life, and (a bit more prosaically) being able to talk to someone you've been watching immediately after the film is over (and I did get a chance, with a few others, to chat with them afterwards, in addition to asking questions in the public Q & A, with Gena Rowlands turning that full wattage sympathetic gaze directly on me.) <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> But seeing movies at home is also part of my history, and
the small screen brought them to me early and often. Though seeing films in the cinema is the ideal (I think of "Sullivan's Travels" in this regard),video also has its advantages, principally an
intimacy with the screen and its images. Seeing these movies in childhood to
adolescence, even if I didn’t follow the plot or notice the nuances, added a
depth of feeling and experience when I saw them as an adult.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO2qMWoS3PCHzaD8v2CGgoOskCldqeSw8pXjC-vgKqvrOT9mcyh0R3_gMaqX6Ztz7MzrmcqmG5eniW5rKLCFZkOikZKezwbWaYVjeAFMsR5lmTNBKeIE4JDQnNbfoZgujpg5xKnwQtbOhFhaAk6S0mkboEjgKHv05TWThO7aRP_aoH6ZCtRw/s550/grapes.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="441" data-original-width="550" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO2qMWoS3PCHzaD8v2CGgoOskCldqeSw8pXjC-vgKqvrOT9mcyh0R3_gMaqX6Ztz7MzrmcqmG5eniW5rKLCFZkOikZKezwbWaYVjeAFMsR5lmTNBKeIE4JDQnNbfoZgujpg5xKnwQtbOhFhaAk6S0mkboEjgKHv05TWThO7aRP_aoH6ZCtRw/s320/grapes.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"The Grapes of Wrath" 1940</td></tr></tbody></table> It may be tempting to assume that in the first quarter of
the 21<sup>st</sup> century, the variety and availability of movies is so much
greater, what with streaming to a home theatre or a computer screen or a phone,
in addition to the residual technologies of cable, satellite and DVD/Blu-ray,
with ever increasing resolution and augmented sound. But I’m not so sure.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> There was a kind of
sweet spot in the 1980s, with several premium cable channels showing year-old
releases, while channels like Turner Classic Movies and American Movie Channel
showed a catalog of old movies, as well as Bravo for a few foreign films. Meanwhile abundant video stores provided
individual choice (and catalogs of foreign language films.) One could buy
movies on cassettes or tape them off the TV, and play a particular movie
whenever you wanted. All of this while
repertory theatres showing classic foreign and American films still existed in
cities and college towns. Those films form the basic cultural and visual
vocabulary of movies. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1yppWFp1JSz50NVlFm__UAbzeSMGqwQIvGq-Qrunc4LzTxMS5lITTGE6IalwXNOt77RYqXR7uKtbzGjqstA64b1XUEfBPSXzb1cDqoBLmzcGhpGdd_zkeaOWdcQjM7x_a1hESQndW11yw3p_xQUJQ363CHe0PQuMf7W1h2-G323TTQIXNfQ/s1200/sullivans-1200-1200-675-675-crop-000000.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1yppWFp1JSz50NVlFm__UAbzeSMGqwQIvGq-Qrunc4LzTxMS5lITTGE6IalwXNOt77RYqXR7uKtbzGjqstA64b1XUEfBPSXzb1cDqoBLmzcGhpGdd_zkeaOWdcQjM7x_a1hESQndW11yw3p_xQUJQ363CHe0PQuMf7W1h2-G323TTQIXNfQ/w400-h225/sullivans-1200-1200-675-675-crop-000000.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Sullivan's Travels" 1941</td></tr></tbody></table>But now those rep theatres like the Orson Welles are largely
gone, as are the video stores. Those
are really big losses, in terms of the movie experience but also curation and
availability.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Meanwhile AMC and Bravo show fewer movies in favor of phony
reality shows, and there are fewer choices on the fewer old generalized premium
channels. Streaming is a hot mess, as the new and old titans duke it out, and
whether you can see a certain movie depends on which services you’re paying
for, and whether they are showing that movie that month. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheyJMVwXZBNshHQWQOfjRyvdakLLSEAxyQSOJTkeLtH1VSYImLXCIsj5uefRdL5ooEckrfBr8lzzY3aEttRGYLUSNPPKo26ioPrcDkidYVnPHOb5IMKoKkJSKAKpWFbkEZqv8ZHcCiGlUvRMUZ-T4OArmlVijZAjlDAN7XpBi6ZhQwBw9b1w/s1000/Section_8_no_4_Colin_Clive_ItsAlive_P1150208.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="781" data-original-width="1000" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheyJMVwXZBNshHQWQOfjRyvdakLLSEAxyQSOJTkeLtH1VSYImLXCIsj5uefRdL5ooEckrfBr8lzzY3aEttRGYLUSNPPKo26ioPrcDkidYVnPHOb5IMKoKkJSKAKpWFbkEZqv8ZHcCiGlUvRMUZ-T4OArmlVijZAjlDAN7XpBi6ZhQwBw9b1w/w400-h313/Section_8_no_4_Colin_Clive_ItsAlive_P1150208.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's Alive! "Frankenstein" 1931</td></tr></tbody></table>Even then you may wind up paying an additional fee to see a
particular movie, and not just brand new ones.
And that’s if you can find it. It seems to be much harder to see classic
films and foreign films just about anywhere than at any time since the
60s. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> There are a few streaming services currently which show medium-old movies (roughly from the 60s onward) without an additional cover
charge, but with commercials. But how
free is it, if you must pay a hefty monthly fee to get Internet streaming, then
pay out for Amazon Fire or some such device? In addition to your viewing and
listening hardware. But back when there
were four to eight channels on a television set, there were movies galore. And
they were all free. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-41625010965457852882023-04-24T01:49:00.001-07:002023-05-28T22:00:56.806-07:00TV and Me: Viewing the 60s<p class="MsoNormal"> <i>Television and I grew up together. This is our story. Latest in a <a href="http://dreamingup.blogspot.com/search/label/TV%20and%20Me">series</a>.</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6p6VzOyQDxLGYv_lem2Hh4ZriMrI3dwiwkV_zbhxw6NhMPbXI64hJJIl4wVL3fPavA8NRbeyQn17CtjgdJUkzbtXg3b4sjFL0TWeIt1wVcgCNG49z9WuTwLevw7qdxe89gonQu-1X2NiZk4dqMU_62stFgc3BRT-T_yS_zAjG0sSKAMfAVw/s800/snow%20tv.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="543" data-original-width="800" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6p6VzOyQDxLGYv_lem2Hh4ZriMrI3dwiwkV_zbhxw6NhMPbXI64hJJIl4wVL3fPavA8NRbeyQn17CtjgdJUkzbtXg3b4sjFL0TWeIt1wVcgCNG49z9WuTwLevw7qdxe89gonQu-1X2NiZk4dqMU_62stFgc3BRT-T_yS_zAjG0sSKAMfAVw/s320/snow%20tv.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>By the 1960s TV news
was growing up, at least to some extent.
The Camel News Caravan disappeared in 1956, replaced by the
Huntley-Brinkley Report, which became the dominant evening news broadcast on
television (though for awhile, the sponsor’s name appeared prominently on the
set.)<div><br /></div><div> With this competition, CBS
replaced Douglas Edwards at the evening news desk in 1962 with Walter Cronkite,
who had co-anchored the network’s 1960 political conventions coverage with
Murrow. About a year later it became
the first half hour network news (fifteen minutes had been the norm), with NBC
soon following, and fledgling ABC several years later. Cronkite remained the CBS anchor until 1981, with his familiar closing: "And that's the way it is." According to polls, he became the most trusted news voice in America, and his on-air analysis of why the Vietnam war was failing legitimized mainstream opposition; "losing Cronkite" and hence much of America allegedly became instrumental in President Lyndon B. Johnson's decision not to seek re-election. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKL6sLafMaY_EXhlSODwCCtiNpfWSYKAfKLiisszBCbuZ5PvQOwh3obhTIACb9iUVZ2z9bgg9zJCmr2bi7ujTzBBQzeVotTq8MqcY_xPH8qDZBWBy22i-bEPCFX6HaVSX9nKVnBHlCy8JqC_AekXS2dLsgLrhFUKZt0CzvDwIT2Bx9zda4kw/s220/220px-Huntley_Brinkley_Report_NBC_News_1963.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="195" data-original-width="220" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKL6sLafMaY_EXhlSODwCCtiNpfWSYKAfKLiisszBCbuZ5PvQOwh3obhTIACb9iUVZ2z9bgg9zJCmr2bi7ujTzBBQzeVotTq8MqcY_xPH8qDZBWBy22i-bEPCFX6HaVSX9nKVnBHlCy8JqC_AekXS2dLsgLrhFUKZt0CzvDwIT2Bx9zda4kw/s1600/220px-Huntley_Brinkley_Report_NBC_News_1963.jpg" width="220" /></a></div> The early 60s team of Huntley-Brinkley (Chet Huntley reporting from New York,
David Brinkley from Washington) was famous for David Brinkley’s unconventional
speech pattern and wry takes on the news, and for the “Goodnight Chet,”
“Goodnight David” sign-offs. The first
Telstar communications satellite linking television transmissions from the US
and Europe in 1962 led not only to an outstanding hit record by the Toranados,
but a celebratory TV program with participants from all the networks—allowing
Walter Cronkite to say for once, “Goodnight, David.”<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> I was a big Huntley-Brinkley fan, and later when I did the
late night news on our college radio station with an expected audience of near
zero, I liked to amuse our station engineer by re-writing and reading wire
service news stories with the cadence and inflections of David Brinkley. Beginning with NBC’s coverage of the 1960
Democratic convention, NBC was my first choice network for news, the rest of
that fateful decade. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfB_XImrcxzRKd-tpj7Ve8ZZkoLENl-XjfpbUalhAkFSfbPq2Oh41fDTq1_I68aEBPdYwHhT_CIjivh68BUFVm4i6n3wi1ZNYyZLL68YjWhBtP2LpFpOi7Ihofcacjv_bVWIREUYDaRelDpIX4KOTtie5BuN3Jn1EVe-gfvOSwE2vmEZ_Dfw/s1536/avedon.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="1321" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfB_XImrcxzRKd-tpj7Ve8ZZkoLENl-XjfpbUalhAkFSfbPq2Oh41fDTq1_I68aEBPdYwHhT_CIjivh68BUFVm4i6n3wi1ZNYyZLL68YjWhBtP2LpFpOi7Ihofcacjv_bVWIREUYDaRelDpIX4KOTtie5BuN3Jn1EVe-gfvOSwE2vmEZ_Dfw/w172-h200/avedon.jpg" width="172" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grissom, Shepard, Glenn:<br />first 3 Americans in space</td></tr></tbody></table>One continuing news story of the 1960s was the US manned space missions. Launches of the first US manned spaceflights were covered live on television, and Americans learned to say "A-OK" and call the launch a "lift off" instead of the "blast off" of Saturday morning science fiction. I watched Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom on their sub-orbital flights, and then John Glenn’s three orbits of the planet, all described and shown (within fairly primitive technical limits) on live television as they happened. Later in the decade the Apollo missions were covered extensively, and the first human step upon ground not on Earth was seen (more or less) as it happened when Neil Armstrong stepped off the lander onto the Moon. <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbhW_LjIdgZz0dsetBwJoHwi78wdtCl2YcVlxiJe8G7WLPOPST4aTGTtxQIDEffJ0WtX5w1zUqvaS9vPXJx2TLWqJCFfJR_mjnfk3Lq9HmoflOFKF9I8jhMGXJ3a5aiT6rhKlmfSFFTMmVysMrDe9-lVHIiCloDBW_OV56UlUQRUECnV8Y2g/s837/JFKWHP-ST-42-5-62-Cecil-Stoughton-24-January-1962.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="837" data-original-width="646" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbhW_LjIdgZz0dsetBwJoHwi78wdtCl2YcVlxiJe8G7WLPOPST4aTGTtxQIDEffJ0WtX5w1zUqvaS9vPXJx2TLWqJCFfJR_mjnfk3Lq9HmoflOFKF9I8jhMGXJ3a5aiT6rhKlmfSFFTMmVysMrDe9-lVHIiCloDBW_OV56UlUQRUECnV8Y2g/s320/JFKWHP-ST-42-5-62-Cecil-Stoughton-24-January-1962.jpg" width="247" /></a></div><br />The Kennedy presidency, it was said, was the first
television presidency. The first-ever
televised debates of the 1960 campaign helped him get to the White House, and
his televised press conferences became viewing sensations, demonstrating his
knowledge of detail and his ready wit and ironic humor. Kennedy sat for long, thoughtful televised
interviews, with single reporters or groups of them in year-end
retrospectives. In these he talked
about the institutional and practical limits of presidential power, and the challenges
ahead—seminars in themselves.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> I absorbed every scrap and pixel of information I could
about the Kennedy administration when I was in high school in the early 60s,
and almost felt I was part of it. (I can still recite the members of the JFK
cabinet, but not of any administration since.)
I had a world affairs column in the high school paper and maintained a
world news bulletin board in a classroom. It soon became impossible to ignore
that world anyway.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Thanks to an
official of the local political arm of the AFL-CIO who my friend Clayton’s
father knew, we got to attend President Kennedy’s only speech in Pittsburgh in
October 1962, officially as ushers.
Part of our responsibility was to alert Secret Service agents of anyone
acting suspiciously. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOjIUJGKBeG73PDf1tSipJ9u4KfPxbwVONhRpGnJjisbnew49-4gCasHXRFtS5h7L2U5i98SI6BXAQwWsQaZZnmK4fLoy1n7KxD9IMNDawpZ8JVfm153vK0RHNS2DxPrBvQbQEHbOXxXqRa6DHJBiXyz79UWc5QHOZRDHKs3S-frYJcYVDIg/s1280/CMC_JFK.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOjIUJGKBeG73PDf1tSipJ9u4KfPxbwVONhRpGnJjisbnew49-4gCasHXRFtS5h7L2U5i98SI6BXAQwWsQaZZnmK4fLoy1n7KxD9IMNDawpZ8JVfm153vK0RHNS2DxPrBvQbQEHbOXxXqRa6DHJBiXyz79UWc5QHOZRDHKs3S-frYJcYVDIg/w320-h240/CMC_JFK.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>A few days later, President Kennedy saw surveillance photos
of Soviet offensive missiles in Cuba, and I was soon watching the Cuban Missile
Crisis unfold on television, along with the rest of the country. In school
one day I was reprimanded for being late to class, because I had stayed beside
a radio to ascertain whether Russian ships were going to fire on American ships
quarantining Cuba, giving us perhaps hours or even minutes before we would be
engulfed in nuclear war.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Months later in June 1963 I proudly watched coverage of JFK
giving his American University speech, which proposed the first break in the
escalation of nuclear weapons, the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, with an
eloquent case for the necessity of pursuing peace. Then the very next night I watched his
powerful nationally televised address
from the Oval Office on racial justice (carried by all three networks),
introducing the legislative ideas that would eventually become the law of the
land in the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> And then one November Friday afternoon in 1963 we heard
principal Father Sheridan’s voice announce over the public address that
President Kennedy had been shot. After the next school period I was walking up
the steps from gym class held outdoors, having almost forgotten about it, or convinced myself I would learn that he would be all right,
when a student going down to the locker room told me that the President was
dead. That day I knew my life and the
world around me would not be the same as it might have been, and I wasn’t
wrong. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ0qdVtwZWZ-M8xBtzw58jjeOCgW_JUq3tldVgse_lhFrICIzTLj5ERmMcm_gpslBfAcYIZZcEJZpubtEeniZnbtc7sZxZMra1Sp2QkWsIhh0ZzDnDCBGofGwWZWAPxeaCjpSK-r0682FU2KAkv2yUyN-ErMylN9frS0LY0X8wFLvzHv5Q9A/s1280/oswald%20USE.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ0qdVtwZWZ-M8xBtzw58jjeOCgW_JUq3tldVgse_lhFrICIzTLj5ERmMcm_gpslBfAcYIZZcEJZpubtEeniZnbtc7sZxZMra1Sp2QkWsIhh0ZzDnDCBGofGwWZWAPxeaCjpSK-r0682FU2KAkv2yUyN-ErMylN9frS0LY0X8wFLvzHv5Q9A/s320/oswald%20USE.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>To an extent it would be nearly unimaginable now, the entire
nation was in shock. There was nothing
on television that weekend except coverage of the assassination, the capture of
the suspect Lee Harvey Oswald, the preparations and then the funeral, with
retrospective footage of JFK. I watched
it all, almost every waking moment. I
couldn’t even be pulled away on Sunday to go to church with my family, and so
it happened that I was watching a live picture as Oswald was being
transferred. I jumped when I saw what I
thought was a gun, but I saw then it was a microphone (you can see it in this screenshot.) A moment later, a man rushed into the badly
lit black and white picture, the crackling sound of gunshots, a glimpse perhaps of Oswald grimacing and
crumpling, then rushed away, before I could be sure of what I saw. What I’d seen, however obscurely, was a man
murdered on live television.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Until then I’d accepted television as a given part of my
ordinary living. But that weekend in
November 1963 solidified it as a participant, wanted or not, in major moments
of what turned out to be my life.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <b><span style="font-size: medium;">B</span></b>y this time, I had served my short and tempestuous turn as
the freshman editor of the monthly high school newspaper (at least Edward R. Murrow
might have approved of me) and had joined speech club. After a couple of years
doing my best JFK style ex temp speeches on various topics (lugging file
folders of clippings and index cards down hallways of schools where we
competed), I went on to debate, partnering with my friend Mike Krempasky. We won
two district championships in our senior year.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Because of all this,
I was subscribing to and reading a lot of news and political issues magazines,
and haunting the periodical room at the Greensburg library, with occasional
forays to the college libraries at Seton Hill and St. Vincent. As well as keeping up with TV news,
commentaries and documentaries.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> I was reading in other areas, following my nose in areas of
classic and contemporary literature. But these concerns with current events were regular activities. These
interests and passions regarding the issues that TV news
programs discussed to some degree, influenced some of the non-news television
shows I watched in the early to mid 1960s.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Once I started high school my viewing was more sporadic and
limited—I had more homework, debate research and preparation and other
extracurricular activities, and the semblance of a so-called social life
(mostly related to school—football and basketball games, school dances, band
concerts.) The speculative and melancholy mooning over girls took up their own infinities of time. So there were shows I watched when I found myself with the time and
inclination, but there were others that I made sure to watch. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9lUAMCH8ZMTsPmig4xyACwGcVExmIQR82FJjVVU--y5F9oD3k8c7h9PvMj-s_mwPV_4O2AZ5sBWt24jlhoDCTuD1UqVXtqHtZPpJVK8sB-tI-_2eX_SUhoIAANs__6ho-8LSJGDEpcpL_4z6YW3QHPN3DTMjaG7-tLDK9FF7sG86oXipZsw/s260/260px-1961_The_Defenders%20(1).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="195" data-original-width="260" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9lUAMCH8ZMTsPmig4xyACwGcVExmIQR82FJjVVU--y5F9oD3k8c7h9PvMj-s_mwPV_4O2AZ5sBWt24jlhoDCTuD1UqVXtqHtZPpJVK8sB-tI-_2eX_SUhoIAANs__6ho-8LSJGDEpcpL_4z6YW3QHPN3DTMjaG7-tLDK9FF7sG86oXipZsw/w200-h150/260px-1961_The_Defenders%20(1).jpg" width="200" /></a></div>There were two courtroom shows that featured characters that
would become all but unknown in television thereafter: idealistic defense
lawyers, fighting for justice. <i>The Defenders</i> is the better known,
starring E.G. Marshall and Robert Reed, and written by Reginald Rose, a veteran
of live drama anthologies. It ran from 1961 to 1965.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_GrJuftdmL28vyGMQk328yeGJEhEIedKJ5FtPPt1FgW79b_kNvpaG2HOkrR85cAty8kruTlfDx1UPtDsBlthnXmM9iTfpG_NTptl8Lu8WpGuW-AIbV_AvOihqYXVHN4jQa2xIwBF5jpcX2lRR8w0GWjQV_eZkYk0x6oQzz6iRnyjpRKzrsQ/s305/law-and-mr-jones-the-tv-movie-poster-1960-1010234727.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="305" data-original-width="200" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_GrJuftdmL28vyGMQk328yeGJEhEIedKJ5FtPPt1FgW79b_kNvpaG2HOkrR85cAty8kruTlfDx1UPtDsBlthnXmM9iTfpG_NTptl8Lu8WpGuW-AIbV_AvOihqYXVHN4jQa2xIwBF5jpcX2lRR8w0GWjQV_eZkYk0x6oQzz6iRnyjpRKzrsQ/s1600/law-and-mr-jones-the-tv-movie-poster-1960-1010234727.jpg" width="200" /></a></div> The other is more forgotten now as it was obscure even then:
<i>The Law and Mr. Jones</i> managed just two seasons (1960-62) starring James
Whitmore as a modest fighter for the rights of the little guy, espousing
principles he quoted from Lincoln, Olivier Wendell Holmes and other greats. I didn’t know anyone else who watched this
series, and so it was my personal nurturance.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> For a year or so, <i>The Defenders</i> and <i>The Law and
Mr. Jones </i>were both on, along with an early evening commentary show by
Howard K. Smith, one of Edward R. Murrow’s protégés at CBS who was fired for
expressing outrage at the conspiracy he’d uncovered between Birmingham, Alabama
police chief Bull Connors and the KKK to beat up Black civil rights protestors.
He moved over to ABC, where this commentary program was broadcast. I made sure to see it, and its tenor seemed
to fit into the same context as those two courtroom shows.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAOQYIiQRix3DzTYgO0AUtR_tAeritz8az7bZGuzNzbXqiTlgobGTswzo5dL6p1CQeLjfkvy3TDMMbu0w22HXk7JvrdF8s47oJLc0g9YkKiH3VYek0gLbEgUgnoSu5NNitYkWILlCVsbrtFkWQJm5JpLXm2L9Rv1Zr5wTM6I_L8SIeiau0WA/s900/george-c-scott-1926-1999-granger.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="746" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAOQYIiQRix3DzTYgO0AUtR_tAeritz8az7bZGuzNzbXqiTlgobGTswzo5dL6p1CQeLjfkvy3TDMMbu0w22HXk7JvrdF8s47oJLc0g9YkKiH3VYek0gLbEgUgnoSu5NNitYkWILlCVsbrtFkWQJm5JpLXm2L9Rv1Zr5wTM6I_L8SIeiau0WA/s320/george-c-scott-1926-1999-granger.jpg" width="265" /></a></div>Beyond the courtroom, the struggle for social justice was
waged by social worker Neil Brock, played by George C. Scott in <i>East Side
/West Side</i>. It ran for only one
season, beginning in the fall of 1963, but I saw every episode every Monday
night. <b> </b>I was not only inspired and
excited by the passion that Brock/Scott brought to injustices and inequities
behind the tragic consequences he had to deal with as a social worker, but I
learned a lot as well. His partners in these efforts were played by Elizabeth
Wilson and the very young Cicely Tyson (the first Black woman in a featured TV
role, a few years before Nichelle Nichols.) James Earl Jones was among the guest stars.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Late in the series, Brock caught the eye of an ambitious
liberal Member of Congress in the JFK mold (played by Linden Chiles), and Brock
is persuaded he could do more good if he worked in his legislative office. But the process is full of compromise and
too slow.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuEuN51AY44-gG-ceyVGhW6G6F2tTkyhudw4AxX5k_4ReCY3np44rgquXsg8g2G0dXa-vin2bxGkktWjp3dcY5LBPRQL0Defv1gmGP767hbFB4lEhl_J8aVIT9ZbFtWUYDRnprQKz4EeVBzPuJtonecZv7EkTS_1KEKygnQMXQqLEVMAD2oQ/s391/gettyimages-1239059635-612x612.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="308" data-original-width="391" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuEuN51AY44-gG-ceyVGhW6G6F2tTkyhudw4AxX5k_4ReCY3np44rgquXsg8g2G0dXa-vin2bxGkktWjp3dcY5LBPRQL0Defv1gmGP767hbFB4lEhl_J8aVIT9ZbFtWUYDRnprQKz4EeVBzPuJtonecZv7EkTS_1KEKygnQMXQqLEVMAD2oQ/s320/gettyimages-1239059635-612x612.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cicely Tyson, Scott, Elizabeth Wilson</td></tr></tbody></table> As far as I can
recall, things were unresolved until CBS cancelled the show, sending the real life Scott on
an epic drunk (according to someone who had worked on the show I met years
later.) I met Elizabeth Wilson in the
1980s and told her of my admiration for the show. Also in the 80s, I saw George C. Scott in a production he also
directed of a Noel Coward play, <i>Design for Living</i> at the Circle on the
Square theatre in New York. I was
seated on the aisle in the top row of the steeply raked auditorium, and Scott made his entrance
from just behind me—before I saw him, he shouted his first line directly in my ear. I was so stunned I missed most of the first act.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The coincidence of these three shows in particular (<i>The
Defenders, East Side/West Side and The Law and Mr. Jones)</i> during my junior
and senior years of high school, when I was engaged daily with some of the same
issues in interscholastic debate, were important to who I was becoming. Shows like those, that explore real issues
and model responses to them, are always rare.
The later years of <i>Boston Legal</i> came the closest to the approach
of those lawyer shows, and to my knowledge there’s never again been anything
like <i>East Side/West Side</i>. One series much later that dealt with social issues but from the perspective of reporters was <i>Lou Grant</i>, which also renewed that Monday at 10 p.m. appointment.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Viewing this combination of news, documentary and these
shows concerning the law and social justice, together with whatever impressions
I’d absorbed from those topical dramas from the Golden Age 50s, all informed
the scripts I wrote that won National Scholastic Magazine awards, the ones that got me my college scholarship. One of those scripts may have been a courtroom drama but the
one I more specifically recall involved Senate hearings. (Of course, of all the nonsense I saved from
those years, these scripts are absent.) </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq7RbFN8thh2Cf_RhR93uIqA2uzm072p0le3AmGiQG0Psf34qzP9XMZEjuy5u5G9R-YWVe0goO99Ju_O85i1EdiG9ysmd1cRAkBmNgQlb4UXSYOWa48anoQc6-3lBaA9ZUE7FuMAPFdU0hTX7nY7PcG-eTLN4_J8MdZd7412CcBYqgx291cg/s939/Nancy_Ames_1964.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="939" data-original-width="685" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq7RbFN8thh2Cf_RhR93uIqA2uzm072p0le3AmGiQG0Psf34qzP9XMZEjuy5u5G9R-YWVe0goO99Ju_O85i1EdiG9ysmd1cRAkBmNgQlb4UXSYOWa48anoQc6-3lBaA9ZUE7FuMAPFdU0hTX7nY7PcG-eTLN4_J8MdZd7412CcBYqgx291cg/w146-h200/Nancy_Ames_1964.jpg" width="146" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nancy Ames</td></tr></tbody></table>A somewhat related
show came soon after. I had already assembled some friends to enact my own
audio scripts of topical satire into a tape recorder when suddenly
(in January 1964, when I was still in high school) there was a television show
that did it all in a big way: <i>That Was the Week That Was</i>, a weekly
satire on the news and culture, introduced by a song about that week’s events
to the theme tune, sung by Nancy Ames, on occasion her blond hair swinging as she gently
propelled her rotating office chair. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> David Frost was the host, bringing a British edge to the
satire by a group of regulars, which included Buck Henry and Phyllis
Newman. Burr Tillstrom (<i>Kukla, Fran
and Ollie</i>) provided Emmy-winning puppetry, guest comedians included Nichols
and May, Woody Allen and Mort Sahl; Comden and Green provided their music, and
Tom Lehrer sang his subversive songs—so wildly popular later on campuses and
record albums—such as “The Dance of the Liberal Republicans” and of course my
favorite, “The Vatican Rag:” <i>Genuflect, genuflect, genuflect</i>. Other guests included Roscoe Lee Brown,
Steve Allen, Elliot Gould, Ann Bancroft, Alan Alda and Kim Hunter. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN3hEs9yh_4zq9gRpVGnQIkE8emDdU0x50vQPG1cS7iAgjyOYF3wa23FnAXd4lMQFcTdPN-a9TplCPZapKNLxOSMArg4Lzr0xp_SKb3ky3R_GqBN42ScTbCtg8SlEbap7ub86mJTsWVAQ-NI2WkF9pKxdez4dwKDoJob-glUQ4nHVOc9eP2Q/s637/640px-James_Garner_Bret_Maverick_Jack_Kelly_Bart_Maverick.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="572" data-original-width="637" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN3hEs9yh_4zq9gRpVGnQIkE8emDdU0x50vQPG1cS7iAgjyOYF3wa23FnAXd4lMQFcTdPN-a9TplCPZapKNLxOSMArg4Lzr0xp_SKb3ky3R_GqBN42ScTbCtg8SlEbap7ub86mJTsWVAQ-NI2WkF9pKxdez4dwKDoJob-glUQ4nHVOc9eP2Q/w200-h179/640px-James_Garner_Bret_Maverick_Jack_Kelly_Bart_Maverick.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Mostly my viewing was catch as catch can: watching <i>Perry
Mason</i> and <i>The Fugitive</i> with the family, or a western (my favorites
were <i>Have Gun, Will Travel</i> and <i>Maverick</i>, but only when James
Garner was appearing.) The family
watched the<i> Dick Van Dyke Show</i> sitcom, which I liked when I saw it
occasionally, and even more in syndicated reruns every afternoon in the summer. Though I appreciated some of its formal deadpan humor, I never took to <i>The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. </i>Bob Denver's Maynard G. Krebs was funny, but I didn't dig him as a representative beatnik. I liked Tuesday Weld and Zelda. I just really didn't like the character of Dobie.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3ndeEbUxgmK6RT9bOXJ6RJ6L1AKgLZGyArJUvdHkmWJ-QW2ud142dgtdyN6SYnj4qk2Rp2dMDLx2RDp7-KsJo36N3wWBk3Kr1eD9f02PhsejAiqhtmWHR4KPfwjRrowZSxFnCQQ-kaulk5EF0zj_7-kaST2w2LRPDQe08AT32WyutS71VJw/s708/7(504).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="457" data-original-width="708" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3ndeEbUxgmK6RT9bOXJ6RJ6L1AKgLZGyArJUvdHkmWJ-QW2ud142dgtdyN6SYnj4qk2Rp2dMDLx2RDp7-KsJo36N3wWBk3Kr1eD9f02PhsejAiqhtmWHR4KPfwjRrowZSxFnCQQ-kaulk5EF0zj_7-kaST2w2LRPDQe08AT32WyutS71VJw/s320/7(504).jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /> The one sitcom I made sure to see was </span><i style="text-align: left;">Hennesey</i><span style="text-align: left;">,
staring Jackie Cooper as a peacetime Navy doctor at a San Diego base
(1959-1962.) It was gentle, human and
humane humor, with a sweetly jaunty opening theme (which I can still
reproduce.) My old Dumont favorite
Roscoe Karns was Hennesey’s irascible superior officer, and I had a crush on
Abby Dalton, who played his nurse and love interest, and in the last season,
his wife.</span></div><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> These were my teenage years, so in addition to everything
else I was listening to the latest music on the radio, following the top ten
and the “Wax to Watch” on KQV. I
watched American Bandstand after school, and Dick Clark’s Saturday night show,
as well as a local Pittsburgh version, “Dance Party” on Saturday afternoons
hosted by disc jockey Clark Race. I once saw him so apparently enthused by the
Marvellettes dancing and lip-synching to their new record, “Please Mr.
Postman,” that he had them repeat it twice more. (These scenes take on a
question mark with the revelations a few years later of payola.) </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_coZZd8eTT4XxvivKdLWsDXleirLIPEwsYxRR0YUXveVQuSX5RczoiciFXegHGD0noras-WrQpGwQ2AYn4AEOG6w4PqoPt-QEofH5DT66Pro8Pj-TSEnfH555REEZyiUMqqSiUvypNw2SfoVLMjJcaxWfGKNvyJBmXwNkEWdxfyrx6YCVxw/s1200/download%20(4).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="1200" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_coZZd8eTT4XxvivKdLWsDXleirLIPEwsYxRR0YUXveVQuSX5RczoiciFXegHGD0noras-WrQpGwQ2AYn4AEOG6w4PqoPt-QEofH5DT66Pro8Pj-TSEnfH555REEZyiUMqqSiUvypNw2SfoVLMjJcaxWfGKNvyJBmXwNkEWdxfyrx6YCVxw/s320/download%20(4).jpg" width="320" /></a></div>By now - after 1957-- television had videotape, and programs
were often, as they said, “pre-recorded.”
In addition to live interviews with kids and guests, and live dancing,
the music shows of Dick Clark and imitators featured singers and bands miming
to their records, before and after which teenagers danced to other records, and
some of them were selected to rate a new record. Their responses were almost always so much the same—“It has a
good beat. You can dance to it. I give it an A”—that they might as well have
been separately pre-recorded and inserted.
TV was moving farther and farther from live performance. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> In the later 50s I had watched <i>Your Hit Parade</i> with
my family, in which a half dozen regularly appearing singers did versions of
that week’s hits. It had been an
important radio show, at one time featuring Frank Sinatra. But after 1956 or so, half the fascination
was noting the struggles that regulars like Dorothy Collins, Snooky Lanson and Giselle Mackenzie
were having with rock and roll tunes, until the program, like an old soldier,
finally faded away.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The early 60s made a
few attempts at live pop music programs but I wasn’t grabbed by any of
them. For a year or so there was <i>Hootenanny</i>
to feature the folk music boom, but it never had very prominent acts. Years later I learned the reason: the show
was incredibly still obeying the Blacklist fears of folk performers like Pete
Seeger, and because of that, the stars of the day like the Kingston Trio and
Peter, Paul and Mary refused to appear. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgUnSG_eCsqFEGm2utIfWShkKNV42d0l5RypQtlgEI22J8-0OOpSLAATYdGYgPcZQUcgAVsIuSsWXH90YEKnqslaZ8BsOYuNLgYz2cPqrbnzEo72qyS2inzv9OZhs9porQic-1B96oMBg5NvFM2Xjevf-hglfUIwtA5UMiXlOqzQwiW7ITsA/s270/download%20(5).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="186" data-original-width="270" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgUnSG_eCsqFEGm2utIfWShkKNV42d0l5RypQtlgEI22J8-0OOpSLAATYdGYgPcZQUcgAVsIuSsWXH90YEKnqslaZ8BsOYuNLgYz2cPqrbnzEo72qyS2inzv9OZhs9porQic-1B96oMBg5NvFM2Xjevf-hglfUIwtA5UMiXlOqzQwiW7ITsA/s1600/download%20(5).jpg" width="270" /></a></div>There were a few shows that everyone I knew at school
watched and would talk about. One was <i>The
Twilight Zone,</i> especially its first few years. I can recall several of those shows even now, as probably others who saw them can. Nuclear apocalypse was a frequent theme.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"> Later there was<i> 77 Sunset Strip</i>, with its finger-snapping
theme song, Kookie the hip parking lot attendant, and some decent detective
stories with stars Efrem Zimbalist, Jr and Roger Smith.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> But in my high school there was one show that was wildly
popular, at least among the students I knew, even though watching it would seem
imprudent if not impossible, because it didn’t end until one in the
morning. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> It was the latest iteration of the Steve Allen late night
show. No one disputes any longer that Steve Allen created the template for late
night shows with the program he refined for local New York City audiences that
NBC broadcast nationally as The Tonight Show in 1954. At the same time he hosted a Sunday prime time variety show,
which by the early 60s had moved to Monday and then Wednesday nights. When that show ended, he immediately
returned to late night. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg73S8Jcp48jXwcHFXcTooXoAufvwwDiLBVChz0F0xVhYWC_xOgz7-XeaQoz1qBK6l1sHOPNumWWXR85y2BLA8EA7oFvg-YLWbjm58whhGB0gmt1cuLS-qCS_XI61keZLbU6IXoaaQqh06K9dcwbmXOizReky8GIgBh5BQebMiFH-1Rq7uqPA/s475/hqdefault.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="329" data-original-width="475" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg73S8Jcp48jXwcHFXcTooXoAufvwwDiLBVChz0F0xVhYWC_xOgz7-XeaQoz1qBK6l1sHOPNumWWXR85y2BLA8EA7oFvg-YLWbjm58whhGB0gmt1cuLS-qCS_XI61keZLbU6IXoaaQqh06K9dcwbmXOizReky8GIgBh5BQebMiFH-1Rq7uqPA/s320/hqdefault.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>This show was produced through Westinghouse Broadcasting,
and it so happened that its flagship station was KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh (the
former Dumont affiliate as WDTV), so we had the opportunity to see it. It was broadcast from an old vaudeville
theatre in Los Angeles, rededicated as the Steve Allen Playhouse.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> I was too young for the Steve Allen <i>Tonight Show</i> (or
for his successor Jack Paar), but I was a big fan of his Sunday show. The Westinghouse late night show was even
wilder. Allen was a bundle of
intellectual energy with a surrealistic edge. Sitting at his desk sipping orange
juice, he theorized that some words were innately funny, because of their
sound. Three of his candidates were
“smock,” “fern” and “creel.” Thereafter he might punctuate whatever he was
doing by suddenly shouting “Schmock! Schmock” like wild bird cries, or
seriously ask a guest, “How’s your fern?”
His fascination with words led him to play Mad Libs (filling in the
blanks of a narrative with random words, and then reading the result) with his
audience.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Jay Leno later
called Steve Allen the first modern comedian without vaudeville ties and
schtick, but as this show proved he was also adept at creative and outrageous
physical comedy as well as satirical skits and wisecracking commentary
befitting the best vaudevillians. One
of his regular offbeat guests was the health food advocate Gypsy Boots, who
entered by swinging across the stage on a vine. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLlfz03rUZavopX-NRFXDv-2R3DkDCPmRPKzDqO2-dW4qTm0hBgiylsztAaEi0ocgmwE25GIQhAkg-ndQh2BtjJuS090rYyOzaNhJQO1IbezbBg6Fwv5f4HavQxiCjfDGL9IL5vQ3QmY3bbRJEOIAjYZjJ1MtKbQjQQQqVl2JUx_h95TpzsQ/s379/gettyimages-517820374-612x612.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="372" data-original-width="379" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLlfz03rUZavopX-NRFXDv-2R3DkDCPmRPKzDqO2-dW4qTm0hBgiylsztAaEi0ocgmwE25GIQhAkg-ndQh2BtjJuS090rYyOzaNhJQO1IbezbBg6Fwv5f4HavQxiCjfDGL9IL5vQ3QmY3bbRJEOIAjYZjJ1MtKbQjQQQqVl2JUx_h95TpzsQ/s320/gettyimages-517820374-612x612.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>What Steve Allen could do that no other late night host did was play piano with his band and musical guests (mostly jazz)--and he did this frequently. He was also a composer, and would challenge audience members to give him three or four numbers corresponding to notes on the keyboard, and he would use them to compose a song on the spot.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> When I interviewed him in the early 1990s in Los Angeles I
referred to this game, though I suggested he used letters. He corrected me, saying he used numbers.
Until we were backstage at the 40<sup>th</sup> anniversary Tonight Show (his
last appearance, as it turned out) when he was chatting with comedian Phil
Hartman who referred to the same bit, and also thought it was letters—so a
thoroughly confused Allen mumbled, sometimes numbers, sometimes letters. But much later I realized the source of my
mistake—I had borrowed the bit in high school to dazzle female classmates,
substituting letters in their names that matched keys for numbers to compose a
rudimentary tune on the piano. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie12G7VjH0TOOYu0JYGGZpWHOPwChvYAbXBrmhV9LAgj35aQ0zjy2L0xI8yJMExOvkR4E8zQEx7JwtT8lDp9vOAdZ-SnBgBNV2HQKmMUaKqFQcfTpiMvgaqRxmSJ5XCnfeO35Qbu5I8SNSFiM2bObsa5oSnYWiPm_bDFztQZa8YMK31VTYUQ/s532/steve-goes-native---1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="532" data-original-width="427" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie12G7VjH0TOOYu0JYGGZpWHOPwChvYAbXBrmhV9LAgj35aQ0zjy2L0xI8yJMExOvkR4E8zQEx7JwtT8lDp9vOAdZ-SnBgBNV2HQKmMUaKqFQcfTpiMvgaqRxmSJ5XCnfeO35Qbu5I8SNSFiM2bObsa5oSnYWiPm_bDFztQZa8YMK31VTYUQ/s320/steve-goes-native---1.jpg" width="257" /></a></div>The show was so popular with my contemporaries who really
shouldn’t have been up that late that the class ahead of mine selected the
Steve Allen Show as the theme of their class variety show, with Jerry Celia at
a desk wearing his Steve Allen glasses, orchestrating the music and mayhem,
including the patented Gypsy Boots entrance. <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This iteration of Steve Allen’s show—and a late 60s
revival—were often cited as inspirations for the next generation of late night
comics, including David Letterman, who shamelessly stole many of Steve Allen’s
bits—that is, the ones Johnny Carson wasn’t already doing on the Tonight Show. I remember as well that late 60s revival, being home from college
in the summers and waiting all day to watch it in the silence of late
night. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><b><span style="font-size: medium;"> I</span></b>n the fall of 1964 I went off to Knox College in Illinois
(carrying with me the Kenyon Hopkins album of his jazz compositions for <i>East
Side/West Side</i>, and an LP of Steve Allen leading a jazz band, <i>Steve
Allen at the Roundtable.</i>) </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMXjHV7Utzo_d0Aedx3WYK8Y5TLNddRxAPQSubQn2zjRf4KRO5u10pOmXOFbIGGpGgqZ1xXcQfB0_NKR1eg7dYIg3djc3mlOfvhY1VT3JwZLqCC3sZ-jbxqpGd-QxlILHu3mvm_ibmEZIz-SZtaax4QfYhECVN57vHIkScnvLyM4XxLKj0yA/s976/monkees.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="549" data-original-width="976" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMXjHV7Utzo_d0Aedx3WYK8Y5TLNddRxAPQSubQn2zjRf4KRO5u10pOmXOFbIGGpGgqZ1xXcQfB0_NKR1eg7dYIg3djc3mlOfvhY1VT3JwZLqCC3sZ-jbxqpGd-QxlILHu3mvm_ibmEZIz-SZtaax4QfYhECVN57vHIkScnvLyM4XxLKj0yA/s320/monkees.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>While
there I won a national college writing prize, again with a television script,
but I never had a TV set. I
occasionally watched something on the big console in the student union (<i>Star
Trek, the Monkees</i>) and caught some reruns in the summers (those same shows
plus <i>Get Smart, The Man From U.N.C.L.E</i>), but during the school year
there was far too much else to do, and other claims on my attention.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Ironically perhaps, this was also when I became besotted
with the writing of Marshall McLuhan, who proclaimed that television heralded
an entirely different view of reality.
His insistence that the importance was not in the programs but in the
medium itself was new to me, and pretty much everyone else.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-7HLvym5dWXFu2nnxV5PEydhYdVEJ6tboGgx3exsHjXoIKNkhuXTIIpnG8gozQ3Jv_voQyKx9-LGzf4b9DoqfzZ-rjmaBrbWWgilkHTDqakNWvKhbhGSnaCAfT2UtGL9aU5K84fB1QfAaLs4T2B5uREFwV_2eW0Inw1b1PW5cA0Ji5-fWnw/s271/batman.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="186" data-original-width="271" height="137" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-7HLvym5dWXFu2nnxV5PEydhYdVEJ6tboGgx3exsHjXoIKNkhuXTIIpnG8gozQ3Jv_voQyKx9-LGzf4b9DoqfzZ-rjmaBrbWWgilkHTDqakNWvKhbhGSnaCAfT2UtGL9aU5K84fB1QfAaLs4T2B5uREFwV_2eW0Inw1b1PW5cA0Ji5-fWnw/w200-h137/batman.jpg" width="200" /></a></div> The only television show I associate with college was a few
months of gatherings at a student apartment (either James Campbell’s or Bob
Mizerowski’s) to watch the campy Adam West <i>Batman</i> series, after which we
went out on the lawn to toss around a Frisbie (then also new and hip.) Most of network television seemed dismal:
the vast wasteland.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <b><span style="font-size: medium;">T</span></b>elevision’s potential power began to be felt immediately in
the 1950s, but as television grew, it was the decade of the 1960s that opened
more eyes to its still unfathomed cultural, societal and political influences
and impacts. John F. Kennedy was said
even at the time to be the first television President, and Vietnam was the
first television war (or “living room war” as it came to be called.) </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9F7zEr02ooXzQmKMYcCB0z9IAhk1jyGkVNkF1MtO81CihmuFY751rAbqbqNmJUS3eKGNriGKDtgcGEJLYeTP0PvTDZX-rc5lng6wL3F78Y1qK0LmOCmY-5ytStN512yTk5TlNA4enHk2jg8PeZaXLXMaesGX_2lfeBuxik6gKdvRfI1Wzzw/s480/dv%20borax%20reagan.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="360" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9F7zEr02ooXzQmKMYcCB0z9IAhk1jyGkVNkF1MtO81CihmuFY751rAbqbqNmJUS3eKGNriGKDtgcGEJLYeTP0PvTDZX-rc5lng6wL3F78Y1qK0LmOCmY-5ytStN512yTk5TlNA4enHk2jg8PeZaXLXMaesGX_2lfeBuxik6gKdvRfI1Wzzw/w150-h200/dv%20borax%20reagan.jpg" width="150" /></a></div> But the profound and even shocking effects on political life
and power became more striking and more ominous in 1980 when Ronald Reagan,
known nationally as the genial host of television’s<i> General Electric Theatre
</i>and <i>Death Valley Days </i>(brought to you by Twenty Mule Team Boraxo)
was elected President. Before that,
Reagan at least had two terms of government experience as governor of
California. But in 2016, a man with no governing experience on any level was
elected President, his self-created caricature of an image having been
burnished and elaborated on a nationally popular television reality show. There’s a detailed study to be made
comparing his campaign and presidency played on television, with the radio rise
and reign of Adolf Hitler.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Before the decade was out, television would make me witness to Vietnam and the antiwar demonstrations I didn’t attend personally, student
uprisings on other campuses, and the out-of-body moment when we heard LBJ announce
he would not run for President again (which at the time seemed to promise an
antiwar candidate.) </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc1o6td0BFVIjuePs0M3fGUijdZR1dyLBk6lHsYggUXNbcpWmzKiWSqtwuynW8rBPsliA3dykCgdFBAfGzxlpZS6QQ24xdfjoiHacn02lpOItWLw7anbF5QJD2fjZ-3RGHMOqwEYuB3xYM90ylOOtdsm3likNKFvwOnlIB7AwsT5vOSrQPtA/s1140/1140-bobby-kennedy-1968.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="655" data-original-width="1140" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc1o6td0BFVIjuePs0M3fGUijdZR1dyLBk6lHsYggUXNbcpWmzKiWSqtwuynW8rBPsliA3dykCgdFBAfGzxlpZS6QQ24xdfjoiHacn02lpOItWLw7anbF5QJD2fjZ-3RGHMOqwEYuB3xYM90ylOOtdsm3likNKFvwOnlIB7AwsT5vOSrQPtA/w400-h230/1140-bobby-kennedy-1968.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>And more than a witness to horrors of Martin Luther King’s
assassination aftermath, and especially Robert Kennedy—the speech in Los
Angeles after he won the last and biggest primary of all, and hours later the
news of his being shot, then many hours, days and nights, of the deathwatch,
then the funeral and the funeral train. The coverage became surreal as reporters tried to find interviewees and so on to fill the time while Robert Kennedy's life was still in question, and one of the remaining unknowns was the alleged assassin Sirhan's first name. I watched NBC's Sander Vanocur, on the brink of physical and emotional exhaustion, try to report the breaking news answer with objective gravity: his first name was Sirhan. He was Sirhan Sirhan.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Then that summer the Democratic Convention and televised police riot in Chicago, cops smashing clubs on protesters, with witnessing crowds then chanting (for the first time): <i>The whole world is watching!</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Even without these associations, I was more repelled than
attracted by television in those years.
In the later 60s, as countercultural pursuits emerged to absorb my
attention and alter my focus, television programs seemed even more out of
it. <i>Laugh-In</i> and <i>The Smothers
Brothers Comedy Hour</i> were of some interest, but at least for a time, it
seemed that while I’d grown up with television, I’d now outgrown it. But there would be more to it than
that. </p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-34607040204118036482023-03-20T02:24:00.001-07:002023-03-20T02:30:38.988-07:00TV and Me: Early 1960s Growing Up With the News<p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBuOJcu0l9_caON0zm_VP-0Nk8gKnz_YkGT149JbVijrMUCcfetAY1lbK5mb64eZwWvO-eh9wSvFFrsIKjKkWjOXIPZrHrfr21mS4jp_sBhwPERGOFXjSGa-qBca7t0vDuqZpht_Q6pdPcM6B2QV4dvqCGt5qJFMj_Uz96li2ETXOQ5tpYkA/s1200/1200x675.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBuOJcu0l9_caON0zm_VP-0Nk8gKnz_YkGT149JbVijrMUCcfetAY1lbK5mb64eZwWvO-eh9wSvFFrsIKjKkWjOXIPZrHrfr21mS4jp_sBhwPERGOFXjSGa-qBca7t0vDuqZpht_Q6pdPcM6B2QV4dvqCGt5qJFMj_Uz96li2ETXOQ5tpYkA/w400-h225/1200x675.jpg" width="400" /></a></i></div><i><br />Television and I grew up together. This is our story. Latest in a <a href="http://dreamingup.blogspot.com/search/label/TV%20and%20Me">series</a>.</i><p></p><p>Even the idea of 1960 was exciting. It was the first turn to a new decade I’d
consciously experienced. Plus the
newspapers and television were making it a big deal. I saw a long TV documentary with a solemn-voiced narrator called
“The Fabulous Fifties” that I taped with my father’s audio reel-to-reel
tape recorder, and listened to several times after seeing it.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But it was the coming decade that promoted excitement. Even the number itself—“60” being a pretty
fast speed for an automobile. There was
a sense that it was a real change, the beginning of the future.</p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEX4Q9_GBU3WYCK2joMUvj7-3EdNMqwoINjgvl7lEEN3iK-0kOBsjfWQ_ynSgwV8jaIB4Cr3CzKdRBKJOFCqEh6LZkHsr3eyD04UWvdY-xQb2_oFMtl6IMffTDVOfIFshm7HtUAfxk3LlolE2US8f6rkINJ-OgI00GB2C1PsViIU3lyDzh_w/s1000/51+POSpIZOL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="662" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEX4Q9_GBU3WYCK2joMUvj7-3EdNMqwoINjgvl7lEEN3iK-0kOBsjfWQ_ynSgwV8jaIB4Cr3CzKdRBKJOFCqEh6LZkHsr3eyD04UWvdY-xQb2_oFMtl6IMffTDVOfIFshm7HtUAfxk3LlolE2US8f6rkINJ-OgI00GB2C1PsViIU3lyDzh_w/s320/51+POSpIZOL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>It was in some
sense the beginning of mine—by the fall I would enter high school. But in a larger (if related) way, it was
associated with the rise of Senator John F. Kennedy and his campaign for
President, at least for me and many others.
Kennedy represented youth (at 43 the youngest presidential candidate in
history), new ideas, and the energy he called vigor (or “vigah” in his New Englandish
accent.) Republicans may have felt the
same way about their likely candidate, Richard Nixon, who was himself only
46. Both were contrasts to the 70 year
old incumbent, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the victorious General of World War II, a
generation in the past.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">All through the year I followed the tense primary campaigns
of Kennedy and Senator Hubert Humphrey, his closet rival for the Democratic
nomination, especially in Wisconsin and West Virginia. I had first taken notice
of national politics during the 1956 conventions, especially when I saw my
mother watching the voting for a vice-presidential nominee. The presidential nominee, Adlai Stevenson,
had left it up to the convention, and Senator Kennedy was in the running. That interested my mother because he was
Catholic, and no Catholics since Al Smith lost in 1928 had gotten this
far. Once it was clear he would lose, I
watched Kennedy give a gracious speech in favor of the eventual nominee, Estes
Kefauver. I remembered him thereafter.</p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGCyhVmuHoNYGRubIuPIvO3snTDi0zAcEgg_kafwO_rMME3fgPQTzdY6MvjPoCZLxd_icXG1LMSzUqYuFcSP7esIrvp2dRpAcnyqPE4Pct5JCW1hqOKTvWw7UZvtT-vTjLXMazmxLBWlYKTrHenXJcn_o5BsPY_cAtwg638t80Dz8qXxwc1w/s1024/Kennedy_GettyImages-615299944-1024x662.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="662" data-original-width="1024" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGCyhVmuHoNYGRubIuPIvO3snTDi0zAcEgg_kafwO_rMME3fgPQTzdY6MvjPoCZLxd_icXG1LMSzUqYuFcSP7esIrvp2dRpAcnyqPE4Pct5JCW1hqOKTvWw7UZvtT-vTjLXMazmxLBWlYKTrHenXJcn_o5BsPY_cAtwg638t80Dz8qXxwc1w/s320/Kennedy_GettyImages-615299944-1024x662.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>So I avidly watched the Democratic convention in July 1960,
the floor demonstrations for candidates and the last minute push to nominate
Stevenson for the third time, before Kennedy won on the first ballot. Then his acceptance speech outdoors in the Memorial Coliseum in LA, where he
first talked about the New Frontier—not a set of promises, he said, “but a set
of challenges.” That was intensely
inspiring and exciting. I tape-recorded that speech with the microphone in
front of the TV and listened to it many times.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> That fall I
organized some classmates into a Teens for Kennedy club, and we did some minor
work for Citizens for Kennedy at their office, handed out some leaflets, once
in the pouring rain with my two friends Clayton and Mike, who were also with me
whooping it up during the election eve torchlight parade—possibly the last in a
long tradition in Greensburg. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhizglRl2gKocBAtIku-OBY_5CMS3Y1V0QXMEbRuoCIbatl92LrNcdKymhltZepTKYkxnBZYgnOn3gbAmnJbTX6fz2ibcwW9RiN4NmzxWR5CyO0_Hqbl4UDBmqmfP4IlgzXWeXySPgmyEcLBBf_I5dwG3KbNEh3olSGvsH8RMohRHkKHUKy8A/s649/President_Kennedy_inaugural_address_color.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="441" data-original-width="649" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhizglRl2gKocBAtIku-OBY_5CMS3Y1V0QXMEbRuoCIbatl92LrNcdKymhltZepTKYkxnBZYgnOn3gbAmnJbTX6fz2ibcwW9RiN4NmzxWR5CyO0_Hqbl4UDBmqmfP4IlgzXWeXySPgmyEcLBBf_I5dwG3KbNEh3olSGvsH8RMohRHkKHUKy8A/s320/President_Kennedy_inaugural_address_color.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>I was in high school for his November election day victory (staying up nearly all night with the returns on TV, catching the official victory in mid-morning),
and in January 1961 I took a bus through a snowstorm to visit relatives in
Washington for his Inauguration. I knew
what church Kennedy went to, and with some luck and pluck, attended the same Mass as
the new President two days after the Inaugural, becoming one of the first
ordinary American citizens to shake his hand as President.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> All of this meant I had more incentive to be reading the
newspapers regularly (the Greensburg Tribune Review, which I had been
delivering on several paper routes between 6<sup>th</sup> grade and the summer
before high school) and the Sunday Pittsburgh Press. I was reading more closely the weekly magazines we got: Life,
Look, Saturday Evening Post, Time and Newsweek. Most of all, I was watching
television news programs and documentaries.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4zAuPm5L65A4xetINDR9bY6B1Vzu_pl23mb7XsmdClkSDhF4UKBKRdP78AxbJBlcwpMOdMjClxpAZ0QeKXSWhyBSARzF0VM9y3HtNGryX0fmn_oHT_udJ48htbUirwMHhNVZc40suDTi0e0xq01TnOkwQ9NnQ49-kwHtBEDyO3KtLNSLDSQ/s1280/pgh%20news01.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4zAuPm5L65A4xetINDR9bY6B1Vzu_pl23mb7XsmdClkSDhF4UKBKRdP78AxbJBlcwpMOdMjClxpAZ0QeKXSWhyBSARzF0VM9y3HtNGryX0fmn_oHT_udJ48htbUirwMHhNVZc40suDTi0e0xq01TnOkwQ9NnQ49-kwHtBEDyO3KtLNSLDSQ/s320/pgh%20news01.jpg" width="320" /></a><b><span style="font-size: medium;">B</span></b>ut then, I had
always watched the news—why not? In the beginning the news was just another
program to me, all fascinating to some degree. </p><p class="MsoNormal"> And at Pittsburgh’s only station WDTV, the news was literally just
another program—one of many 15, 10 and even 5 minute shows done live in the
same studio for hours of each day when the networks weren't sending their limited menu of shows. Programs set up on each of
the studio’s four walls, and the camera moved from one to the next. They all employed simple backdrops—even the
news reporter stood at a podium with just a curtain behind him.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> And like any other program of the time, the sponsor was
prominently identified, so these reporters—Dave Murray, Carl Ide, Ray Scott
etc.—stood behind a podium signed by Duquesne Light (an electric company) or
Fort Pitt Beer. And “the weather girl” wore a negligee because the sponsor sold
mattresses.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvlLrWs-sHQWDy5ZUUhR1SHC0fCpcBcMEz1qIwbtgmrYJoxsmln7Xod8E0wk-GEYvHelerhcspqo_h6R-nVJRMTskA12dcxp9Sj_fLj6uLJE-5TjQ0RE1l4DSh6chdzIsmgCqLCKejVtSfFoX_XH-OKEy_dMi4aYYYabbB98tRxQYgNXO4vg/s287/20011011kdkaburnsfd_230.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="287" data-original-width="230" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvlLrWs-sHQWDy5ZUUhR1SHC0fCpcBcMEz1qIwbtgmrYJoxsmln7Xod8E0wk-GEYvHelerhcspqo_h6R-nVJRMTskA12dcxp9Sj_fLj6uLJE-5TjQ0RE1l4DSh6chdzIsmgCqLCKejVtSfFoX_XH-OKEy_dMi4aYYYabbB98tRxQYgNXO4vg/w160-h200/20011011kdkaburnsfd_230.jpg" width="160" /></a></div> Like everything in local TV, how newscast operated was
improvised on the fly, and if it worked, institutionalized. I interviewed one of Pittsburgh most iconic
news names, Bill Burns, when he was still on the air in 1980. He began in 1953. For his first news
shows, he went out to get the stories, came back and edited the film, wrote
the script, and delivered the news. For
years I watched him do the noon news; when I interviewed him he was
co-anchoring the local evening news with his daughter, Patti Burns.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Another Pittsburgh TV reporter I watched do the noon news
(for Town Talk Bread), was Bob Tracey, otherwise a radio announcer with an
education in acting. I met him in the
early 90s, when he’d returned to acting for local theatres, one of which was doing a reading of a play I wrote. He was part of the cast--playing the news coming from the TV. In my play the television was a kind of character, with increasingly
bizarre news reports inflecting the action. Besides hearing stories about the
wild days of early TV news, I had the singular experience of hearing Bob Tracey's voice
that had spoken to me through the TV when I was a child, reading these surreal
reports I’d written in that same news cadence. (He went on to appear in several Hollywood films.) </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik355voJfQbxk_fAn4x6OlJvgEk3Bh-RhsSpsYc-MOH0aFA4-ggQOAmsOtAGvyXNwxJMH03sV4rkZNeZJ_9XjABwN3TUExwUwGyUPOlo7ndHnFe7D3WrMnPgDE-017Wtv4onN5du7bO_kEKbDPp5q4rDxzdJfplcCq2a5Xq42_WoULxwApZQ/s600/f54ee1d26e2e1bb56d52940f37ea0b9b.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik355voJfQbxk_fAn4x6OlJvgEk3Bh-RhsSpsYc-MOH0aFA4-ggQOAmsOtAGvyXNwxJMH03sV4rkZNeZJ_9XjABwN3TUExwUwGyUPOlo7ndHnFe7D3WrMnPgDE-017Wtv4onN5du7bO_kEKbDPp5q4rDxzdJfplcCq2a5Xq42_WoULxwApZQ/s320/f54ee1d26e2e1bb56d52940f37ea0b9b.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>The biggest name in daily national news for much of the
1950s was John Cameron Swayze, who did NBC’s evening news. (Even on this level, the sponsor was
prominent—the name of the show was the Camel News Caravan, sponsored by Camel
cigarettes.) His opening remains indelible: <i>Ladies and gentlemen, and good
evening to you—this is John Cameron Swayze, downtown.</i> On the other hand,
absent from my memory is his reported closing: “That’s the story, folks—glad we
could get together.” That might be followed by a mention of his sponsor.<div><br /></div><div> Even though he wasn’t identified with a daily newscast, the
biggest name in television news programs in the 1950s was Edward R.
Murrow. By most accounts, he
essentially invented national television news and imbued it with disciplines
and ethics, encouraging its practice as independent professional journalism (so
there was soon no more Camel News Caravan or reporters pitching products.) <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXVBSFAUNQjUMYMj8iyYHFPYQyAErPcrKMZZrYgddJ6o1GU31aUH6Td1D1KVHKO2xtb0MPGWgyYMli5iYCG6rdIxn5UYMlLRYIMelNo_Au7F8dYiQ9qgLzin5ls-pnnoxIFFrgk3aZeBQXfCtlKFdZZZdXTz9G5-XYY-g6ef2jeHUsdB8HSQ/s700/logging.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="475" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXVBSFAUNQjUMYMj8iyYHFPYQyAErPcrKMZZrYgddJ6o1GU31aUH6Td1D1KVHKO2xtb0MPGWgyYMli5iYCG6rdIxn5UYMlLRYIMelNo_Au7F8dYiQ9qgLzin5ls-pnnoxIFFrgk3aZeBQXfCtlKFdZZZdXTz9G5-XYY-g6ef2jeHUsdB8HSQ/s320/logging.jpg" width="217" /></a></div> Literally born in a log cabin at Polecat Creek, North
Carolina, and saddled with the name of Egbert Roscoe by parents who were
Quakers and farmers, Murrow had a rural upbringing. The family moved to a homestead in Washington state, where he
participated in high school debate, played for the county champions basketball
team and worked in a logging camp. A
student leader, he attended Washington State College where he became “Edward,”
and came under the tutelage of the most significant mentor of his life, Ida Lou
Anderson, his speech teacher. His
speech in favor of students learning more about world affairs won him the
presidency of a national student organization.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> After graduation he held a series of administrative jobs
with educational nonprofits in New York City before being hired by CBS radio as
director of talks and education in 1935.
He joined CBS news also as an administrator, and as political crisis
grew in Europe he was sent there to urge Europeans of note to broadcast to
America on the network. So as Hitler
began making his first moves towards war, Edward R. Murrow had no formal
journalism education or experience, and apparently hadn’t yet been near a
microphone.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> But CBS had few correspondents in Europe, and responding to
an emergency situation, Murrow had nobody to put on the air but himself.
Broadcast news would never be the same. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTn2eHwmOUC6uP7FgInRS8pMhpGczSM-oA0_QLoGT3h_LMz8IE8wgdq9z70AaPuZ_x7AYBNmoR6XU8dErhKxaYe6b__Xp_6E5MLcjwurR_y1Aw6GhHT9rQOpECxw6KVBMN0IbCLW-pODoLr2PXf_1XStWfSNQxUH2osQ34ZfaVGdOAW8nyaw/s661/Edward_R._Murrow_1947.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="661" data-original-width="536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTn2eHwmOUC6uP7FgInRS8pMhpGczSM-oA0_QLoGT3h_LMz8IE8wgdq9z70AaPuZ_x7AYBNmoR6XU8dErhKxaYe6b__Xp_6E5MLcjwurR_y1Aw6GhHT9rQOpECxw6KVBMN0IbCLW-pODoLr2PXf_1XStWfSNQxUH2osQ34ZfaVGdOAW8nyaw/s320/Edward_R._Murrow_1947.jpg" width="259" /></a></div>Murrow achieved his first sustained fame with his London
broadcasts during the Blitz. He was
known for his vivid descriptions of what he observed. His words were sent to America by shortwave radio, augmented for
broadcast by CBS. He began each
broadcast with the words “This is London,” and ended them with something Londoners
said to each other in hope of surviving the next bombardment: “Goodnight, and
good luck.” His former speech teacher suggested the opening, and encouraged him to continue
the sign-off phrase—which he did for every radio and TV broadcast thereafter.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Murrow's broadcasts from Europe earlier, and then from London
were the first real time reports from overseas that Americans had ever heard. They were
immensely popular. Still later, Murrow went on bombing runs from London to
Germany, describing them as they happened, the bombs bursting below like
“sunflowers gone mad.” In 1945 He and
his colleagues were the first American reporters to enter the Buchenwald
concentration camp. In a voice of restrained anguish and anger, he was the
first to describe the visible consequences of the Holocaust there. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHLcf9VLDtBm1KRQUacQRHDVfpsh_-z10mhP3JURMM66-wtXTqD6KB3VltM16civ-zuTxDmES-lFM5y7WuFFiYDoF-OKzp6-Dcs8LJwYfgqD28wcIJzAO4PYnKpu1EB-PajEJCBybNmcMK8JilUilUWyRb4yp0pp5TidOe-S6xOUezzhFP_w/s466/edwardmurrowcbsseeitnow.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="351" data-original-width="466" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHLcf9VLDtBm1KRQUacQRHDVfpsh_-z10mhP3JURMM66-wtXTqD6KB3VltM16civ-zuTxDmES-lFM5y7WuFFiYDoF-OKzp6-Dcs8LJwYfgqD28wcIJzAO4PYnKpu1EB-PajEJCBybNmcMK8JilUilUWyRb4yp0pp5TidOe-S6xOUezzhFP_w/s320/edwardmurrowcbsseeitnow.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Back in the US in the early 1950s, Murrow eventually made the reluctant
transition to television with the <i>See It Now</i> program. As was happening
in early local TV, Murrow and his CBS colleagues were inventing the form of the
news program as they did them. Such
experiments as interviewing ordinary people about race or ground soldiers in
Korea during that ugly war in the early 1950s became standards by which later
news reporting was measured.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> This pioneering program was the first to film the eye of a
hurricane from inside a B-52 (with Murrow likening the sea below to
an unseen giant ruffling a rug), and covered ordinary midwestern citizens,
white and black, working to hold back a raging river.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <i>See It Now</i> had a vast viewership, as did a lighter
interview program Murrow did called <i>Person to Person</i>, in which he sat in
the studio while CBS cameras were in the celebrity subject’s home, sometimes
showing them moving from room to room.
It also was very popular, and innovative in its way.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The climax of Murrow’s TV career is usually described to be
the <i>See It Now</i> broadcasts in which he took on Senator Joseph McCarthy
and the Communist witchhunt which together with the related blacklists had a
stranglehold on American life. It
helped to end McCarthy’s career, if not McCarthyism itself. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> I was too young in 1954 to understand the McCarthy
situation, but I do remember watching <i>See It Now</i> (probably after the
sudden prominence of quiz shows forced it out of weekday prime time to 5 p.m. on Sundays in
1956.) I also remember <i>Person to Person</i>, and the unique figure of Edward
R. Murrow.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhInLgYgRwvXeZ7z96AeMu4w1_6qZc8hkIb5qLidqCPzb-ZjnPZ2m7t5HtzKYNB8uq8rE0ZuimGN8uL0xr81hRAfZJ-w0c2-sDAvpRiRtckPqp7Wed6gdi8ZOUcZHy52G6zQZJzTm8Oj-PE8KA9icUz5A10xnBP1oNsuvVDeU0sqmbY1cI43Q/s2048/FFEtkOVXwAQojCu.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1558" data-original-width="2048" height="152" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhInLgYgRwvXeZ7z96AeMu4w1_6qZc8hkIb5qLidqCPzb-ZjnPZ2m7t5HtzKYNB8uq8rE0ZuimGN8uL0xr81hRAfZJ-w0c2-sDAvpRiRtckPqp7Wed6gdi8ZOUcZHy52G6zQZJzTm8Oj-PE8KA9icUz5A10xnBP1oNsuvVDeU0sqmbY1cI43Q/w200-h152/FFEtkOVXwAQojCu.jpg" width="200" /></a></div> In 1959 and the sixties, I was an avid viewer of <i>CBS
Reports,</i> an hour long program that was <i>See It Now’s</i> direct
successor, with some hours in the first two years featuring Edward R.
Murrow. And I specifically remember
seeing the last one he did, broadcast in November 1960, called “Harvest of
Shame,” witnessing and detailing the tragic lives of migrant farmworkers. (CBS Reports also had that great theme music, a bit of Aaron Copland's reworking of "Simple Gifts" for "Appalachian Spring.")<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUF-boKMWMEKbnSbtEWVeFPWDywDRprW41t4BGAbIi5JuT-U5epmXaAje--g7LBS0OqwjnoQjwCNFK4g4ojBwmK0IgR2vhGjfgUlr4LbGxAApljdU5sxQsWoyyjYSB8AW4sttNODvyAooDOXqglA4MDp9sI6RN-7sgDxJowUHMLgll6mG7xg/s1571/harvest-shame_wide-227d11da8198ab414a0c2244467353af329907dc.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="883" data-original-width="1571" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUF-boKMWMEKbnSbtEWVeFPWDywDRprW41t4BGAbIi5JuT-U5epmXaAje--g7LBS0OqwjnoQjwCNFK4g4ojBwmK0IgR2vhGjfgUlr4LbGxAApljdU5sxQsWoyyjYSB8AW4sttNODvyAooDOXqglA4MDp9sI6RN-7sgDxJowUHMLgll6mG7xg/s320/harvest-shame_wide-227d11da8198ab414a0c2244467353af329907dc.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> Migrant farmworkers in 1960 looked different than
today’s. There were some Mexicans
legally brought in to work in West Coast orchards and fields, but the
documentary mainly followed the migrants who began in Florida, were herded into
trucks and buses to follow the crops north as they ripened ending in the summer
in New Jersey. These migrants were
Black and White American citizens. The
documentary showed their poverty, horrific living conditions and poor diets,
and contrasted their transport with the refrigerated trucks that carried the
produce they picked, and the trucks that carried livestock, obeying stringent
regulations of how often the animals were fed and rested. <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpYNp-zSJ7vg3_4Dwl_aktPB7aC3GiFTwPNSHk1LZgXE16gP2_6VIcbSFBNfEg1ArXMsFZ0BwMIBvVJBnWzB_TguejRBNule4Jc4oW7YBqppVxSnDd0Z5qDFqA_1ByDsHoCC6iteDmg1vxEOrPfkl5HegEv0G5nZnUEbepLeyzH1Ro7q6m_Q/s1886/MV5BYjlhNGE0OWUtZWVkOC00MWM3LWEzY2ItMTE1OTE5OWFhNGUyXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyOTY5MDIwMjA@._V1_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1427" data-original-width="1886" height="151" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpYNp-zSJ7vg3_4Dwl_aktPB7aC3GiFTwPNSHk1LZgXE16gP2_6VIcbSFBNfEg1ArXMsFZ0BwMIBvVJBnWzB_TguejRBNule4Jc4oW7YBqppVxSnDd0Z5qDFqA_1ByDsHoCC6iteDmg1vxEOrPfkl5HegEv0G5nZnUEbepLeyzH1Ro7q6m_Q/w200-h151/MV5BYjlhNGE0OWUtZWVkOC00MWM3LWEzY2ItMTE1OTE5OWFhNGUyXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyOTY5MDIwMjA@._V1_.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Migrants who got to New Jersey for a longer harvest season
might enroll their children in (segregated) schools for the summer. The documentary interviewed two or three
children: one boy wanted to be a dentist, a girl wanted to be a teacher. But Murrow informs us, neither will likely come
close to these goals.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Migrant children were as trapped as their parents in this
treadmill of deprivation, forced to work in the fields at an early age. Perhaps one in five hundred would finish
grade school, Murrow said, and one in five thousand high school. And there was no documented case, he said,
of a child of a migrant worker graduating college.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdM9S-BerGt0xJng8XX4NF468ngCS9TQtJBs7WV3eUy_lxTaGlwbaljm3oEupPM-KHXPO4jIuPk7iszXg3KmLMPJvU2qugjovJ8sFwUn8OiSHMyKJPd7Cd-A3aLjsu84MnH4LAtgPBtzGV6W60mwnU3orLWCw02lpBwW5f69QdEMcNVgxNrw/s255/images%20(2).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="198" data-original-width="255" height="155" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdM9S-BerGt0xJng8XX4NF468ngCS9TQtJBs7WV3eUy_lxTaGlwbaljm3oEupPM-KHXPO4jIuPk7iszXg3KmLMPJvU2qugjovJ8sFwUn8OiSHMyKJPd7Cd-A3aLjsu84MnH4LAtgPBtzGV6W60mwnU3orLWCw02lpBwW5f69QdEMcNVgxNrw/w200-h155/images%20(2).jpg" width="200" /></a></div> I have always
remembered that one moment from this program: Murrow saying that no migrant
child was known to have gone through college.
In my memory this assertion was accompanied by footage of a flight of
birds. That part of the memory didn’t
make sense, but when I watched the program again recently, I saw that the
flight of birds indeed did appear but a few moments later, when Murrow noted
that the federal government spends more on migratory wildlife than on the
education of migrant children.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> But I can understand
why I conflated this image with the words about no migrant child ever
completing college. I was looking forward to the possibility of going to
college, which I viewed as being my first flight upwards to the possibilities
for my own life. That migrant children were doomed never to have this
opportunity frightened and saddened me deeply, and opened my eyes anew to the
evils of injustice.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjywSvfLv0ipaOLP_o36aFezPhLOnCvmO_hcgbJLDNdS9q14uKu7Mnhe3jqn-7uMOl2oOJUJSuyFkX8UHKG5MOlyaZAw0GUQvwxhAcCQsVU8m28ZCwOaqp-fCSZ-JjCt67g92BMefcXx4n6dkoPi38cN90pLYlM6WgDvIPJI-28pgCg0umhSg/s740/harvestofshame_feb2005.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="470" data-original-width="740" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjywSvfLv0ipaOLP_o36aFezPhLOnCvmO_hcgbJLDNdS9q14uKu7Mnhe3jqn-7uMOl2oOJUJSuyFkX8UHKG5MOlyaZAw0GUQvwxhAcCQsVU8m28ZCwOaqp-fCSZ-JjCt67g92BMefcXx4n6dkoPi38cN90pLYlM6WgDvIPJI-28pgCg0umhSg/s320/harvestofshame_feb2005.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> It was documentaries like this one, plus coverage of the
Kennedy campaign in the West Virginia primary, as well as my own observations on my paper
routes in my own home town, that sensitized me to the presence of poverty. They
led me a few years later to read Michael Harrington’s book on poverty, <i>The Other America,</i> which also deeply affected JFK. (Even before reading the book, I read Dwight MacDonald's long review in the New Yorker, which suggested that Harrington had even underestimated the percentage of the poor.) In 1963 Kennedy reputedly told aides that the themes of his 1964
reelection campaign would be further steps beyond the limited nuclear test ban
treaty, and addressing poverty. This
was the initial impetus for what became the War on Poverty in the LBJ years.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Similarly, TV news and documentaries of the Civil Rights
movement (I remember watching live coverage of the confrontation between
Justice Department officials and Alabama governor George Wallace at “the
schoolhouse door,” in which Wallace made his speech and backed away, allowing
the first Black students to be enrolled in the university) merged with reading
(especially James Baldwin essays) and personal experience, all resolved me to
take the freedom train down to Washington and participate in the now famous
(but then controversial) March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, where I heard Martin Luther King deliver his famous "I have a dream" speech.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> So television (along with reading and actual experience)
contributed to both my fascination with politics and political issues on an
intellectual level, as well as to my emotional response and motivation to
confront injustice and make it right, make a better future. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Time has shown that it takes more than televised exposure and political good intentions to right these insidious and recurrent wrongs. Though the migrant children of today are more likely to be from Latin America and in the US on their own, they are no less caught in the treadmill of low-paying work and no time, money or energy for education. The Dickensian violation of child labor laws in the US is apparently rampant, with thousands of children in the consumer supply chain. And after some decades of incremental progress, the current and continuing rise of racism is obvious in any day's news. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><b> I</b>n the early 60s I watched other documentary programs
inspired by Murrow’s example, including the occasional NBC White Paper. There
were many reasons that more news documentaries began airing then. One of the more indirect factors was the quiz show
scandal.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyPIxHdx9iBN398zPkz5w6uEctgRK2XF3Krw0m7AsA_JKgnle5Zj9kNnJpqRuPUhOzn2aXds3GOdxaVwyym_vv9WbI6yegBNQDgiihFBkSyisHSC8XC2-q89SELyyLwn5N1lQoJrOUx-4BWw4Fzud67oCF0WOH5yhH4Ko3iofNR_n_YIpfGA/s612/gettyimages-3438246-612x612.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="444" data-original-width="612" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyPIxHdx9iBN398zPkz5w6uEctgRK2XF3Krw0m7AsA_JKgnle5Zj9kNnJpqRuPUhOzn2aXds3GOdxaVwyym_vv9WbI6yegBNQDgiihFBkSyisHSC8XC2-q89SELyyLwn5N1lQoJrOUx-4BWw4Fzud67oCF0WOH5yhH4Ko3iofNR_n_YIpfGA/s320/gettyimages-3438246-612x612.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /> In the mid-1950s a series of big money quiz shows dominated
ratings and national attention: The <i>$64,000 Question </i>and its spinoffs on
CBS, and <i>Twenty-One</i> on NBC were the most prominent. But a few years later, rumors and charges
that the outcomes had been fixed emerged.
A grand jury was impaneled in New York County, and took testimony. When a judge sealed the jury’s findings, a
congressional investigation eventually revealed widespread cheating and
manipulation, resulting in public outcry and cancellations.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4V5DfA-8ygDDuBlfHMUufh97jGDG8a2BKjxiy0kvEQnjCAH7H7VypQcE2XCarYlKhLdbD1z0zRE0DumX8b3hiaCs3AZhtNHR6c7o9RnNFYsLfCq3vPn0hYA9O18DRDVE_MVDCcUQ4c3yLwzFHimWvOENISw1rsfy4dXcHBc-VAxQjgz2mQw/s640/QuixShow_Van_Doren_Corbis.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4V5DfA-8ygDDuBlfHMUufh97jGDG8a2BKjxiy0kvEQnjCAH7H7VypQcE2XCarYlKhLdbD1z0zRE0DumX8b3hiaCs3AZhtNHR6c7o9RnNFYsLfCq3vPn0hYA9O18DRDVE_MVDCcUQ4c3yLwzFHimWvOENISw1rsfy4dXcHBc-VAxQjgz2mQw/s320/QuixShow_Van_Doren_Corbis.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /> The most dramatic case was that of Charles van Doren, whose
run on Twenty-One was extremely popular.
As a result of his quiz show victories he was widely considered an
intellectual giant. I remember him
being interviewed on a news program about the International Geophysical Year in
1957 (which I knew about from the little magazine we got in school), and asked if he thought the Russians could launch a space satellite
before the scheduled U.S. launches in 1958. No satellite had ever been launched, and no rocket had reached space at that time. He smiled indulgently and reassured the reporter that the Russian were
far behind. Month later, in October 1957, the Soviet satellite Sputnik
was circling the globe, well before the US was ready. He’d been given
the wrong answer.</div><div><br /></div><div> In 1959 van Doren
finally admitted his part in the quiz show cheating.
<i>Twenty-One</i>, looking to increase ratings, chose him as their big
winner, mostly for his looks and star quality as well as academic qualifications. The quiz shows not only
provided answers to him and certain other contestants, but told contestants when they were going to lose (so they didn't accidentally give the right answer.) They planned entire arcs or stories for
viewers to follow, which they did.<div><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> In September 1960 President Eisenhower signed a law making
cheating on quiz shows illegal. By that
time the TV networks made a number of changes, including taking control of
programs away from their sponsors, in part leading to fewer shows being
sponsored by a single company, with many companies buying bits of commercial
time. Another change was an increase in
network-created public service programs, including news documentaries. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Another reason for the number of news documentaries was the sense that networks as well as individual stations using the public airways had a responsibility to air public service programs. By our time now in the first quarter of the 21<sup>st</sup>
century, the idea of news as public service has all but disappeared. It's much more about ratings and money. Similarly, big money quiz shows, absent for decades, are
back. Meanwhile, the so-called reality
shows are as shaped and manipulated as any quiz show was in the 50s, with arcs
and stories for viewers to follow, which they do.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <span style="font-family: inherit;">The
manipulation of reality shows is public knowledge, though I don’t know how many
of their fans know. I also doubt that
they’d care. For these shows exist in a media environment in which facts are routinely manipulated and
falsified, and it appears that fact and fiction even in so-called news are no
longer contradictory terms. While
opinion and ideology rule cable news channels, MSNBC for example may express a
point of view in selection of issue and sometimes selectivity of information (though arguably this selection is based on importance rather than ideology), by and large it respects actual facts. That is not the case with FOX and
its ilk—making up and selling "facts" while ignoring actual facts are essentially what they
do. This is the information chaos that
infects television and the culture, further accelerated and normalized by social media, so the kind of public outrage over quiz
show cheating that erupted in the 1950s seems pretty unlikely today.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">TV in the 60s continued and concluded next time...</span></p></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-12914031021183132332023-02-23T00:10:00.002-08:002023-05-28T22:19:20.014-07:00TV and Me: Drama in the Living Room<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Television and I grew up together. This is our story. Latest in a<a href="http://dreamingup.blogspot.com/search/label/TV%20and%20Me"> series</a>.</i> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZEJLAE9qQiHYDHxG7Ehs0LFdeGQVfDHkJonSH1SzwMOLboNsxeDS6Km9xxrKdUOBmXpt9sXOyzgTa-n3-O4lkRzq8KbwJYsZi8kMeyTC1PjKneEtqGdhOcfUGzXuyGEaJmDgjxH7Mj9Vz0mjslM8Sad8O-AJi0npu1zjimg_YxpVDWCxgtw/s2500/221028-1950s-family-television-cs-b3c1e6.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1649" data-original-width="2500" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZEJLAE9qQiHYDHxG7Ehs0LFdeGQVfDHkJonSH1SzwMOLboNsxeDS6Km9xxrKdUOBmXpt9sXOyzgTa-n3-O4lkRzq8KbwJYsZi8kMeyTC1PjKneEtqGdhOcfUGzXuyGEaJmDgjxH7Mj9Vz0mjslM8Sad8O-AJi0npu1zjimg_YxpVDWCxgtw/s320/221028-1950s-family-television-cs-b3c1e6.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>The game—and I doubt I was the only one in any generation to
play it—went like this: with one or both parents watching TV or at least in the
living room with me, and the clock moving closer to 9 pm and bedtime—I got very
still and quiet, I made myself as inconspicuous and potentially invisible as
possible, hoping they wouldn’t notice me as the show and its commercials end,
until we were through the gap between programs, and the nine p.m. show has
begun. I then had a better argument for
staying up to watch it, because it had already started. Partly because I had two younger sisters my
mother needed to get ready for bed, this sometimes even worked. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Many of the comedy and variety shows started as early as
7:30 and were over by 9 or 9:30 (we usually could beg extensions for something
like <i>I Love Lucy</i>.) But after 9
was often when the drama programs were on.
They would continue—some an hour long—until the news at 11. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxtW2gfymwAPL3JYWbYtC48_ppWEFmnZ8TgSJa-hS-6QuSNIV1Jdr55FW4NisKRqqaJGjkqNVvxozcCgLRj0DjQ8wr964BxtCcZrPFmJfVhalLt3HH0Yqnxn5YoCb61MWW3aB-tkeNClTos2YrZXFfS19pewmSVlPBzjkxAuyIiG06PWDtlw/s375/rockykinginsidedetective.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="239" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxtW2gfymwAPL3JYWbYtC48_ppWEFmnZ8TgSJa-hS-6QuSNIV1Jdr55FW4NisKRqqaJGjkqNVvxozcCgLRj0DjQ8wr964BxtCcZrPFmJfVhalLt3HH0Yqnxn5YoCb61MWW3aB-tkeNClTos2YrZXFfS19pewmSVlPBzjkxAuyIiG06PWDtlw/s320/rockykinginsidedetective.jpg" width="204" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rocky King, Dumont</td></tr></tbody></table>The additional delicacy of needing to change channels at
this point to see the show I hoped for (it was best if parents left the room
for some reason) didn’t come up often. We got only two commercial stations
until 1957, the Johnstown NBC affiliate WJAC-TV and principally WDTV
Pittsburgh, the Dumont station, that broadcast all the Dumont shows plus their
favorites from the other three networks (sometimes on kinescope days or weeks
later.) Even when Dumont folded and it
became KDKA-TV, we could see their selection of programs from three networks.
So there were some early to mid 1950s shows we missed altogether. By 1958
Pittsburgh had affiliates for all three networks plus the educational/public
station WQED.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The effort to see these dramas past assigned bedtime led to
other kinds of drama in the living room.
But I remember quite a lot of these shows anyway.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> Some of these were drama series of one kind or another, like
one of my early favorites<i>, Rocky King, Inside Detective,</i> a low budget Dumont
show starring Roscoe Karns as a world-weary police detective in a trench coat
who at the end of the episode was seen in a phone booth explaining the case to
his never-seen wife Mabel. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidiGDPZ-0tnQjc2awT1NjbzNK-y38VJKZ8YLa5tS3L5jz-y6-svJpv4XYrnA3goWszr3GiBLjfd-FSCRUrgw5vOr8POkwPwdMuZx0ELpITx67E9MHUnqmoGISeq7Zj7mdfc4XRZqtuNF5MoeqY6pglyGN6WAIQnWJ2TjhHRtkVimZnTYVK3A/s421/Jack-Webb-and-Ben-Alexander-in-the-1950s-Dragnet.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="421" data-original-width="385" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidiGDPZ-0tnQjc2awT1NjbzNK-y38VJKZ8YLa5tS3L5jz-y6-svJpv4XYrnA3goWszr3GiBLjfd-FSCRUrgw5vOr8POkwPwdMuZx0ELpITx67E9MHUnqmoGISeq7Zj7mdfc4XRZqtuNF5MoeqY6pglyGN6WAIQnWJ2TjhHRtkVimZnTYVK3A/w183-h200/Jack-Webb-and-Ben-Alexander-in-the-1950s-Dragnet.jpg" width="183" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jack Webb, Ben Alexander</td></tr></tbody></table>There were other police and crime shows<i>: Racket Squad, Mr. District Attorney, The Big
Story </i>(crime-fighting reporters) and the Jack Webb and Ben Alexander <i>Dragnet</i>,
its famous monotones and plodding plots concerning what today would seem
laughably minor crime for a TV series, with occasional humor (as in the drunk
they pulled over who kept insisting he was on his way to Pismo Beach—just the
way he said Pismo was funny.) Another characteristically 1950s cop show was <i>Highway Patrol</i> starring Broderick Crawford, his car and his radio, 10-4. This syndicated half hour ran from 1955 to 1959 and forever in reruns.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCSpgzaSHhwph38zUMXM4iLunlv5IJyxdAk7fx0493pfx3gKguTmYi_DIUe1JiDw5PclBgfbz-QSEHOvG4wTcC7gNvMY-Z9tm85Vj7CmwtHKXytJSqIfRe3mtis7kUReYvSdSTHjhSTBWV-FLZlatRrc5AkeBeonti20qgJoh-tE_iTMeu7Q/s734/640px-Richard_Boone_Medic_1955.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="734" data-original-width="640" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCSpgzaSHhwph38zUMXM4iLunlv5IJyxdAk7fx0493pfx3gKguTmYi_DIUe1JiDw5PclBgfbz-QSEHOvG4wTcC7gNvMY-Z9tm85Vj7CmwtHKXytJSqIfRe3mtis7kUReYvSdSTHjhSTBWV-FLZlatRrc5AkeBeonti20qgJoh-tE_iTMeu7Q/w174-h200/640px-Richard_Boone_Medic_1955.jpg" width="174" /></a></div>There were a scattering of other drama series during the
1950s of the kind that became familiar in the decades following: such as the
medical shows (Richard Boone’s classic <i>Medic</i> of the mid-50s; its
fictional but fact-based story about responding to an atomic attack presaged <i>The
Day After</i>, and is still valid) and the first “adult westerns”(meaning hour
long dramas with characters and plots a bit more complex than <i>The Lone
Ranger</i>, and sometimes the suggestion of sex), beginning with <i>Gunsmoke</i>
in 1955 and <i>Have Gun, Will Travel</i> (starring—again—Richard Boone) in
1957, and eventually taking over what came to be called prime time.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> There was an early 50s science fiction anthology called <i>Tales
of Tomorrow</i>, live from New York, which I don’t recall seeing, possibly
because it didn’t make the WDTV cut.
But in 1955 I became an immediate fan of the syndicated <i>Science
Fiction Theatre</i>. It ran three seasons, the first two filmed in color so it got a second life in the 60s. Announcer Truman
Bradley would begin each episode with a science demonstration, sort of a
capsule <i>Watch Mr. Wizard. </i>It would bear in some way on the fictional and
often speculative half hour story that followed. Then Bradley would return afterwards and remind us that: “our
story is fiction. It did not happen…But
could it?” </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg33Zoedi5HhfWFa_xHlFwBJpiWuXkgz0Tdr_qmf-5rMqwbbSVNo4-wlxTd6CgRGz00T06myYVzjh1tDek-NMVp_aerfTkQWPcTPamyB1_4L8qLNc6ROFaopSG5yb6Tue2Rn7wCcIcVxzwqH0cXILYLjP_PYqC-rP2x2A5jmar6jnMztoAWrg/s1363/907e3fff966728a0314dc347f196a5fe.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1257" data-original-width="1363" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg33Zoedi5HhfWFa_xHlFwBJpiWuXkgz0Tdr_qmf-5rMqwbbSVNo4-wlxTd6CgRGz00T06myYVzjh1tDek-NMVp_aerfTkQWPcTPamyB1_4L8qLNc6ROFaopSG5yb6Tue2Rn7wCcIcVxzwqH0cXILYLjP_PYqC-rP2x2A5jmar6jnMztoAWrg/w200-h184/907e3fff966728a0314dc347f196a5fe.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Truman Bradley</td></tr></tbody></table> I remember that this distinction so impressed me that when
our fourth grade teacher asked for examples of words of opposite meaning, I
volunteered “Fact and fiction.” She was
startled and hesitated before accepting it, a hint that the distinction is not so
clear to everyone.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> As for the stories, the one I remembered for years starred
Don DeFore, who I knew as Thorny, affable neighbor of Ozzie and Harriet. It
involved DeFore’s new neighbor (Warren Stevens, who I would soon see in the
classic s/f film <i>Forbidden Planet</i>) owning some curious devices,
including a vacuum cleaner that runs itself, a “sonic broom” or 1950s
roomba. He finally reveals (in the
guise of telling a story he’s writing) that he and his wife are time-traveling
fugitives from an oppressive future. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiamgVbUlPIZhBYdPN0HhfJBGsZZjEbRQ5sfAztdCcNpKU5ucy4N1X7euTkZG71wVsnmuo__Xjqv8vlIXOCGiWxeHqM-xby1lLKCcFfh2Jk56vQm_C48-MkFWv2EbAhHvs7qD1bdpB38D5PIvCqco5_V0NbSVIOVEoIXaeZnkbYA4hOgjQgyQ/s720/sftheat03.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="720" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiamgVbUlPIZhBYdPN0HhfJBGsZZjEbRQ5sfAztdCcNpKU5ucy4N1X7euTkZG71wVsnmuo__Xjqv8vlIXOCGiWxeHqM-xby1lLKCcFfh2Jk56vQm_C48-MkFWv2EbAhHvs7qD1bdpB38D5PIvCqco5_V0NbSVIOVEoIXaeZnkbYA4hOgjQgyQ/s320/sftheat03.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Marie Windsor, Warren Stevens, Don DeFore</td></tr></tbody></table>It turns out that
this episode was the second in the series, titled “Time is Just A Place,” and
has quite a pedigree: the story it adapted was written by Jack Finney, who also
wrote the novel upon which <i>The Invasion of the Body Snatchers </i>is based,
and the best-seller <i>Time and Again</i> (he was also a Knox College grad).
The episode is directed by Jack Arnold, a sacred name in 1950s sci-fi movies
(he directed the first two Creature of the Black Lagoon features, as well <i>as
It Came From Outer Space</i>, <i>The Incredible Shrinking Man</i> and <i>The
Space Children</i>.) <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Many other now familiar faces appeared in the series,
including DeForrest Kelley (Dr. McCoy), who even played a doctor. This series
was one of my favorites of the 1950s.
It looms large in my legend. </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2-1Ny-o47H5vB9i-ypGYXXGhb0D77FfZ-RhQb8N0yLCs6zmzekDz7dBLTHXwdHp0tFvCb699r_Go4OUQ8XctyD-gjDO-GJADk9lUW8Ej0JyYugSJf5pKzQtzAhFI_9jyMOKHJl4ZOgT5at66L2GmunTVVirGwThPRJlvFraSz5gRDFnI3wA/s900/3-loretta-young-show-loretta-young-everett.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="677" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2-1Ny-o47H5vB9i-ypGYXXGhb0D77FfZ-RhQb8N0yLCs6zmzekDz7dBLTHXwdHp0tFvCb699r_Go4OUQ8XctyD-gjDO-GJADk9lUW8Ej0JyYugSJf5pKzQtzAhFI_9jyMOKHJl4ZOgT5at66L2GmunTVVirGwThPRJlvFraSz5gRDFnI3wA/s320/3-loretta-young-show-loretta-young-everett.jpg" width="241" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Loretta Young</td></tr></tbody></table> But by far the dominant dramas of the early and mid- 1950s
were the anthologies that presented a different story with different actors
every show. Some were introduced by a famous host who sometimes (or often) took
part in the drama. I most clearly remember
that I watched Four Star Playhouse, probably because in its first seasons it
was on from 8:30 to 9. The “four stars”
from the movies were David Niven, Charles Boyer, Ida Lupino, and the one who
appeared most often, Dick Powell. I
don’t remember specific stories but I remember those names, especially Dick
Powell. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Similarly, I remember the Loretta Young anthology mostly for
her dramatic entrances to introduce the story in a sweeping 1950s dress, and
Jane Wyman’s intros on what was first called Fireside Theatre. I also enjoyed spotting them in various
makeup in the plays. General Electric Theater was hosted by actor and pitchman
Ronald Reagan, who also showed up in some of the stories. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdL9aeX4vmMvjJSgxcdouIOumCkEYZzWQuj9UOj0SYSmO6vSqtaRpiIllXF3hXKuTzcLqutV8bjxh6-PZnlgW2Hmcb0MS8T_dvrpSDM-9k3ng8YPKtkDb94oqIKoC-syxHnsE-xhItvtaqKlvmXAo3UW6Q9gVU7INvx9AVjeMYADWoazhJ1Q/s1024/c319d4ec61fb3de92cf990bdfbadf3cb.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="860" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdL9aeX4vmMvjJSgxcdouIOumCkEYZzWQuj9UOj0SYSmO6vSqtaRpiIllXF3hXKuTzcLqutV8bjxh6-PZnlgW2Hmcb0MS8T_dvrpSDM-9k3ng8YPKtkDb94oqIKoC-syxHnsE-xhItvtaqKlvmXAo3UW6Q9gVU7INvx9AVjeMYADWoazhJ1Q/s320/c319d4ec61fb3de92cf990bdfbadf3cb.jpg" width="269" /></a></div>Some half hour drama anthologies specialized in crime
stories, or romances (Starlight Theatre, Silver Theatre), mystery and suspense (the most famous of
these was Alfred Hitchcock Presents, hosted by the master himself, with wicked
introductions often wittier than the story.)
There were so many of these half-hour anthologies in the mid 1950s
(Showcase Theatre, Startime Playhouse, Short Short Dramas, Nine Thirty Curtain,
etc.) that other summer series cherrypicked from among their offerings to
present repackaged reruns.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Most of the aforementioned (with the certain exception of <i>Rocky
King</i>) were filmed dramas, many of them originating in Hollywood. To reiterate, video tape had not been
perfected or in use before 1956 or 1957.
TV shows before then were either filmed (often by Hollywood film studios
quietly exploring the TV market) or were seen at least in part of the country
on kinescope recordings, which basically were made by movie cameras aimed at TV
monitors, and therefore with degraded picture.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <b><span style="font-size: medium;">T</span></b>he other and first method was live: the show transmitted at
the same time as it happened. And it was the live drama anthologies, mostly
staged in New York for often a full hour or more, that gave this era the name
of the Golden Age of Television. Even more than the sitcoms, these shows
displayed the full range of talents that New York could muster, from the Broadway
stage and Group Theatre veterans to the brash young Actors Studio actors and
associated writers and directors.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> These shows were also made possible by the tradition of sole
sponsorship inherited from radio: a single sponsor with a direct relationship to
the show, not just buying commercial time but attaching its name to the
program. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Most of the anthologies were sponsored by large corporations
that wanted the prestige associated with them, and could pay for it. Large corporations were becoming larger and
more numerous in the 1950s, with more employees and more visibility in American
life. They wanted to put a human face
on their otherwise faceless business. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsoSHpdcIZ_9wJWWyMQtHJGFQ3gIFra3qHIqHSUUDhFwdu_ZohlBtg5kDfdczxW1fGMXJjZmHI0D6qHlCy6BdcUeVlm1aRuRkvla5_kJAUbT4BEU9z8GOyCX_xdT9F2i70EyQF0DxZljt_blAr2vYQCXPBjDyx04aPL6CtgY-nvIXi0A_yOA/s352/Betty%20Furness%20Studio%20One.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="297" data-original-width="352" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsoSHpdcIZ_9wJWWyMQtHJGFQ3gIFra3qHIqHSUUDhFwdu_ZohlBtg5kDfdczxW1fGMXJjZmHI0D6qHlCy6BdcUeVlm1aRuRkvla5_kJAUbT4BEU9z8GOyCX_xdT9F2i70EyQF0DxZljt_blAr2vYQCXPBjDyx04aPL6CtgY-nvIXi0A_yOA/s320/Betty%20Furness%20Studio%20One.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>They also wanted their place in the expanding consumer
economy. Some of these companies sold
products: Westinghouse Studio One—one of the best and longest running of the
anthology shows—featured commercials by Betty Furness, who over a decade became
a star for opening up refrigerator doors, and imprinting the slogan on the
American mind<i>: “You can be sure if it’s Westinghouse.” </i>Armstrong Circle
Theatre sold tile, Ford Theatre cars, Lux Video Theatre soap, Kraft Television
Theatre cheese, Goodyear TV Playhouse tires and Philip Morris Playhouse
cigarettes.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Some companies sold services: natural gas companies
sponsored shows to highlight the benefits of gas appliances (sponsoring and
getting endorsement from <i>Ozzie and Harriet</i> at one point), while General
Electric sold not only its own products but the benefits of electrical
appliances and the overall benefits of electric power plus science and
research, leading up to their punchline slogan: <i>“Progress is our most
important product.” </i> U.S. Steel Hour
and Alcoa Playhouse made sure the benefits of steel and aluminum to America and
“the products you buy” were known, as well as associating themselves with this
worthy enterprise of presenting quality drama, free, in the comfort of your
living room.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> They weren’t kidding either. For the variety of original and
classic stories they dramatized, and as displays of the dramatic storytelling
talent then available, many of them were wonders. (Because most were recorded
only on kinescope, even recordings that survive only hint at what they looked
like when first broadcast.) </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji8rjVqQI9HOW2S_0Ad9RCiC3GTvvfndsCTJ5gJztJmEoUS18lmmvroi9HuhybMxCvoY77XyonYifp4NsT34daLqi6Z6Hlhpsgeu_5_Z9Rj2Fi3gHGl6NFgyLh17gcaX6nO3ZhKDiL4eq17Io54Zzh6J6ASkM7D3JVpVzQo__cBuRgXX-uqQ/s281/goodyear%20play03.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="190" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji8rjVqQI9HOW2S_0Ad9RCiC3GTvvfndsCTJ5gJztJmEoUS18lmmvroi9HuhybMxCvoY77XyonYifp4NsT34daLqi6Z6Hlhpsgeu_5_Z9Rj2Fi3gHGl6NFgyLh17gcaX6nO3ZhKDiL4eq17Io54Zzh6J6ASkM7D3JVpVzQo__cBuRgXX-uqQ/s1600/goodyear%20play03.jpg" width="190" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Carolyn Jones, Wm. Shatner,<br />Raymond Massey</td></tr></tbody></table>Among the young writers nurtured and produced by the
Goodyear Television Playhouse, a live hour of new teleplays, were Gore Vidal,
Paddy Chayefsky, Horton Foote and Tad Mosel.
Their young directors included Sidney Lumet, Delbert Mann and Arthur
Penn. All of them had major careers in
movies, stage and television over many succeeding decades, and each of them
created at least one classic of our era.
Many of these same writers and directors worked for other anthologies,
such as Playhouse 90. These dramas
featured veteran actors and newcomers: for example, Raymond Massey paired with
William Shatner in his US network premiere.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Sidney Lumet also directed for the Alcoa Hour, which
presented live original plays and adaptations.
The actors appearing ranged from Dorothy and Lillian Gish, Margaret Hamilton,
Basil Rathbone (in a musical adaptation of Dickens’ <i>A Christmas Carol</i>)
and Helen Hayes to young actors Jason Robards, Anne Bancroft, Walter Matthau
and Lloyd Bridges. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTwdvQ7ilFqgiR0BIIDGUkR8U1RmVipymXFc53Do6lko-PLODc4FRD_h_WDSsk6J5E8fDYTE1j8rn-yRjv3vhzhcbwCz4QPzkeC-VmWlol438EzTK5aX5modbfzbGtUysEhtGxlSoooQOibAEO73Q8ZzV5OmrcZxJkoWDrijJ1g3Chg44vqg/s650/img-26138.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="650" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTwdvQ7ilFqgiR0BIIDGUkR8U1RmVipymXFc53Do6lko-PLODc4FRD_h_WDSsk6J5E8fDYTE1j8rn-yRjv3vhzhcbwCz4QPzkeC-VmWlol438EzTK5aX5modbfzbGtUysEhtGxlSoooQOibAEO73Q8ZzV5OmrcZxJkoWDrijJ1g3Chg44vqg/s320/img-26138.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Patterns": Rod Serling's examination of <br />corporate culture</td></tr></tbody></table> I remember the Kraft Television Theatre on Wednesday nights
for the most insidious of reason: announcer Dan Herlihy’s delicious voice doing
the Kraft cheese commercials. But it
was a major and very popular one hour drama anthology, live from the NBC New
York studio which now hosts Saturday Night Live.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Kraft did elaborate productions—the hour about the sinking
of the Titanic featured a cast of 101—and versions of classic stories by
Shakespeare, Ibsen, Agatha Christie and one of the hottest playwrights at the
time, Tennessee Williams. There were
contemporary stories by up and coming writers like Rod Sterling as well, some
including music and even pop stars of the moment. Young actors like Hope Lang, Paul Newman, Rod Steiger, Lee Grant,
Colleen Dewhurst and Cloris Leachman were directed by up and coming talents
like Robert Altman (<i>McCabe & Mrs. Miller</i>) and George Roy Hill (<i>The
Sting</i>.) In the late 50s the series
specialized in mystery and suspense stories. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZBm4PiAwZWdp4Wsp5OSa29lUfGPkL3HLmAs263dxRppNxYFdaydmcjj5PEmebjq4qJwa9vw8xM-mo7_R_8xmciYjd76LI6ZzTyPWBzvM5toQSpo2TBawcJO2oZgesMiG6ZsUBDZB639_YYOV5daY46QUTwwFlu3vsUgG5mbhrFe-7EPj8IQ/s899/686px-Mary_Martin_Peter_Pan_1960.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="899" data-original-width="686" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZBm4PiAwZWdp4Wsp5OSa29lUfGPkL3HLmAs263dxRppNxYFdaydmcjj5PEmebjq4qJwa9vw8xM-mo7_R_8xmciYjd76LI6ZzTyPWBzvM5toQSpo2TBawcJO2oZgesMiG6ZsUBDZB639_YYOV5daY46QUTwwFlu3vsUgG5mbhrFe-7EPj8IQ/s320/686px-Mary_Martin_Peter_Pan_1960.jpg" width="244" /></a></div>Producers Showcase was a little different: a true anthology,
featuring 90 minute live presentations of musical theatre and comedy as well as
drama. It was also an 8 p.m. show,
meant for a family audience. It’s where we saw Mary Martin’s Peter Pan—saw it
performed live twice, in fact, with Martin flying across the stage on wires in
1955 and 1956.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Another highlight of
its three year run was a new musical adaptation of Thornton Wilder’s classic
play <i>Our Town</i>. Frank Sinatra
played the stage manager character (the narrator), and sang most of the songs,
including one that became a hit and a classic: “Love and Marriage.” The young
Paul Newman was also in the cast—decades later, one of his last stage roles was
the stage manager in this play revived on Broadway.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> A star-studded
dramatic presentation was <i>The Petrified Forest</i>, with Humphrey Bogart in
the role that had won his Broadway fame in the 1930s and introduced him in the
movies. This time his costars were
Lauren Bacall and Henry Fonda. It was Bogie and Bacall’s first appearance on
TV. Other performers included Louis
Armstrong, Audrey Hepburn, dancer Margot Fonteyn (in Cinderella) and Claire
Bloom (adaptation of Romeo and Juliet.)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> At the cutting edge of the spectrum was Star Tonight, a half
hour live play featuring young unknowns from the New York stage and drama
schools. Several did go on to long
careers, including Joanne Woodward and Robert Culp. This series ran for the
1955-56 season on the upstart ABC network.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXcEo7a3Fbdj_L_9u3fGac-xkb762_wYLy4_d2kjLDQy5tn7COcxlpRVzKE5yjKLXqaxoEqz8nVBHmXoVyJvowSohP3jTnpi04NIZhwatgR71pcqyrPKsK7OsnZUieXfiCH7JzO8EhY2pUE5m_BNciAzL6AYqUJJcjqLNLtfdJZ-8RiQO1eA/s268/Deanharvest.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="201" data-original-width="268" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXcEo7a3Fbdj_L_9u3fGac-xkb762_wYLy4_d2kjLDQy5tn7COcxlpRVzKE5yjKLXqaxoEqz8nVBHmXoVyJvowSohP3jTnpi04NIZhwatgR71pcqyrPKsK7OsnZUieXfiCH7JzO8EhY2pUE5m_BNciAzL6AYqUJJcjqLNLtfdJZ-8RiQO1eA/s1600/Deanharvest.jpg" width="268" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nancy Sheridan, James Dean</td></tr></tbody></table> One of the first
drama anthologies was Robert Montgomery Presents which ran from 1950 to 1957.
Montgomery, familiar as an actor but who also worked as a producer and director,
introduced a one hour live presentation, including adaptations of movies, stage
plays and books as well as original teleplays. The show is remembered for its
high production values and general excellence.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Such was
Montgomery’s status that he got some big Hollywood stars to appear, including
Grace Kelly, Claudette Colbert and James Cagney, alongside such newcomers as
Jack Lemmon, John Cassavetes, Gena Rowlands, Roger Moore and James Dean. The series was nominated for the Best Drama
Emmy three times, and won once.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The Montgomery show staged the Gian-Carlo Menotti opera <i>Amahl
and the Night Visitors</i> on Christmas Eve 1956, which became an annual event,
outliving the series itself. And my
grandmother watched it every time, and insisted we did, too. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> In the mid-50s, Armstrong Circle Theatre (produced by David
Susskind, who once stole a handful of peanuts from my table at the Algonquin
Hotel bar) began to specialize in teleplays about actual events, such as the
sinking of the Andrea Doria—an episode I seem to recall. Actors appearing in
this series included Ed Asner, Robert Duvall, Patty Duke, Peter Falk and
Geraldine Fitzgerald. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggxDAjaff2GgDUihQhWzOjFzpw2mXDs-8xlHClyq6eQDbAW4qtIrawuZAYEGYuA_kOo_nebpiBOutr9cV659IarF9kevIAC35UzC5CT2159fAuwKeE0GXg7TtntDZa2wsrpN3w9Jyu36_m7X8EZiMBa3kXYUjGi-YiA9PhUCSz57wksaCFTQ/s1316/playhouse90.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1316" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggxDAjaff2GgDUihQhWzOjFzpw2mXDs-8xlHClyq6eQDbAW4qtIrawuZAYEGYuA_kOo_nebpiBOutr9cV659IarF9kevIAC35UzC5CT2159fAuwKeE0GXg7TtntDZa2wsrpN3w9Jyu36_m7X8EZiMBa3kXYUjGi-YiA9PhUCSz57wksaCFTQ/s320/playhouse90.jpg" width="243" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward</td></tr></tbody></table>Probably the last of these drama anthologies to premiere was
the one that is best remembered—and was the most rewarded with Emmys and
accolades: Playhouse 90, which ran from 1956 to 1960. Some of the productions I believe I saw at least part of—like
“The Days of Wine and Roses”—were still over my head. I’m pretty sure I did see
and comprehend “The Miracle Worker” with Patty McCormick as Helen Keller. Others I don’t recall are tantalizing to
think I might have seen: did I catch my first glimpse of a Scott Fitzgerald
story in the adaptation of “Winter Dreams?”
Or of a Faulkner story, in Horton Foote’s adaptation of his story in
“Old Man”? Or Hemingway’s <i>For Whom
the Bell Tolls</i>, in two parts?<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> These were ambitious ninety minute productions, emphasizing
new writers like Rod Sterling, whose scripts took on topical concerns and moral
issues, prefiguring the best of his later <i>Twilight Zone</i> series. I likely
saw some of these, since in a few years I would write my own. Film director John Frankenheimer honed his
craft on this series, directing 25 teleplays. A highlight of the series was its
version of <i>Judgment at Nuremberg</i> (written by Abby Mann, directed by
George Roy Hill) broadcast a few years before the Spencer Tracy movie,
bristling with relevance as America was slowly confronting the Holocaust. This was only one of many scripts for these
live dramas that became the basis for feature films. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7o0iD8z0iv_0-7Dv0tqF1cRJldFy0Eeq6ww5U-B7c-bdl6GEzE5PeMXdPlgGH1R1sP3HrD0w_IOQQ4xkkboQ-PdZi1D7z_SIyfibYmD4jOmOb2ApI8Tj8rc4jRXc5haMFAT9sVvID-_UGTavVnw_Adw7rN1vyOKnv5NtS-ueAF3IhAwxR8Q/s700/playhousenurembergj.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="430" data-original-width="700" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7o0iD8z0iv_0-7Dv0tqF1cRJldFy0Eeq6ww5U-B7c-bdl6GEzE5PeMXdPlgGH1R1sP3HrD0w_IOQQ4xkkboQ-PdZi1D7z_SIyfibYmD4jOmOb2ApI8Tj8rc4jRXc5haMFAT9sVvID-_UGTavVnw_Adw7rN1vyOKnv5NtS-ueAF3IhAwxR8Q/s320/playhousenurembergj.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Maximillian Schell in <i>Judgment at Nuremberg</i></td></tr></tbody></table>Once again, this series featured established older (and
sometimes elder) actors along with younger actors who would become stars of
stage and screen, with some unique pairing it would be remarkable to see again:
Charles Laughton and Robert Redford (playing a Nazi officer), Claude Rains and
Maximillian Schell, Vincent Price and Charlton Heston. Mike Nichols played a rare dramatic role in
probably the first serious dramatic treatment of mental illness on US
television. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> One of the longest running of the drama anthologies was
also close to the top in terms of quality and reputation: Studio One ran for
the decade of 1948 to 1958, after a year’s head start on radio. It was known
for its visual excellence and camera work, taking live TV to its height. Among
its best known live dramatizations was “Twelve Angry Men,” later made into a
feature film. Among its adaptations
were versions of <i>Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Of Human Bondage, </i>and
several Shakespeare plays, including <i>The Taming of the Shrew</i> and <i>Julius
Caesar</i>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTQJnak70lA52uv-K0L7OSftTPQ4IVs4j64RY6shj_YOUWNyiZuQCxnIez0EYqY7lP6wW5aGAkCQlBFKMBeuNcXD5w5Cb5Vq2AbYpaY-E9PutisKBQKPIaSC-OMs4YoZOnCZK5AIcCqhQXh9KqfjvpCrmSIiYbiB_2d_I9YnchjPdtT4jBEg/s468/caesar.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="356" data-original-width="468" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTQJnak70lA52uv-K0L7OSftTPQ4IVs4j64RY6shj_YOUWNyiZuQCxnIez0EYqY7lP6wW5aGAkCQlBFKMBeuNcXD5w5Cb5Vq2AbYpaY-E9PutisKBQKPIaSC-OMs4YoZOnCZK5AIcCqhQXh9KqfjvpCrmSIiYbiB_2d_I9YnchjPdtT4jBEg/s320/caesar.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> In fact, Studio One did live versions of the same one-hour
script of Shakespeare’s <i>Julius Caesar</i> three times, mostly in the summer
when most of the staff was on vacation.
Theodore Bikel played Caesar in at least two of them, in 1950 and in
1955—which is apparently when I saw it.
This production of Julius Caesar is the first Shakespeare I remember
seeing. I thought I was 11 but the schedule tells me I was 9. I remember it
because I watched it sprawled on the floor alone while visiting my Aunt Toni
and her family in Federalsburg, Maryland in the summer. As it was getting late, she asked me if I
was really watching it—that is, if I was getting it. I recounted the plot as I understood it and she allowed me to see
the end. It’s probably Shakespeare’s
simplest story, and I had a head start on anything Roman from Catholic schools,
but I remember this because I understood it when I was not expected to. <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg60VlQ8cHsbclb3nYyoqnvqcvzR8aFPCKab8xg8jnkgdKiGPrLEoQtt04Z6Vu7DZzxDsXB7zFisETISmiof9cMxdkLpTeEb9IrKPTePLHeEeU3e8EFAp0Q__cv8Fg3huAbNwYrbMqDS0jfGOhLe42Sk05uJZry232-Yg-fOqXXaH3AZDKc-g/s1058/CZS-QMSW0AE-t75.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="830" data-original-width="1058" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg60VlQ8cHsbclb3nYyoqnvqcvzR8aFPCKab8xg8jnkgdKiGPrLEoQtt04Z6Vu7DZzxDsXB7zFisETISmiof9cMxdkLpTeEb9IrKPTePLHeEeU3e8EFAp0Q__cv8Fg3huAbNwYrbMqDS0jfGOhLe42Sk05uJZry232-Yg-fOqXXaH3AZDKc-g/s320/CZS-QMSW0AE-t75.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">G</span></b>rowing up with TV may have meant that I did not read as
much or as deeply. The bounty of TV stories fed my fantasy life in perhaps a
more simplified way, as least consciously, and was at least a chief supplementary guide to how the
world worked. Esteemed writer Margaret
Atwood is about six years older than me and so did not grow up with TV, and she is way better read than me. I’ve noticed this about select others older
than me or who otherwise grew up without TV.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> But TV is only one possible factor. For one thing, Margaret Atwood is way
smarter than me. Her parents had university
degrees and professions. Neither of my
parents went to college, nor did the parents of most of my friends. I grew up
in a working class culture at the edge of a small town. Also my parents generation—specifically my
mother’s—had at least a later childhood and adolescence populated by radio
stories, often audio versions of the same shows I watched on 1950s TV. So radio shaped at least some, probably
many, in her generation.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> At this age I feel the gap: unfamiliarity with many
classics, particularly of the ancient world, and less comprehension of the
depths of written fairy tales and myths that someone like Atwood has, for
instance. The current alarm over how
digital devices and social media have radically altered perceptions and skills,
including the ability to concentrate, reminds me that some of the same concerns
were raised about television. To some extent those concerns were warranted.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Still, I know that in my specific context, I read particular
books and sought out authors because I knew of them from television. Television gave me a window (however
distorted) on a world of educated people and professionals, on political
leaders, journalists, scientists, scholars and writers. I did not fear cities
and could see myself in one. And in a
specific way, TV got me to college.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfAfo2pgov8zBhtvwNlRYni7FuVUWysX3VjUFZq9YltusuaKnM3nCBIH-pUXWJfU4c3PJLnR9XbPxm2WyeD9ieuXickccKD0QlWwzMUi54N6s5APxQpVOkQTX_A_ykUkhbrDTXKQT9tPkvoZcwlE6VRTSYJrqBqUMJV3YeL557cPMs1ThOlA/s640/defender%201957.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="464" data-original-width="640" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfAfo2pgov8zBhtvwNlRYni7FuVUWysX3VjUFZq9YltusuaKnM3nCBIH-pUXWJfU4c3PJLnR9XbPxm2WyeD9ieuXickccKD0QlWwzMUi54N6s5APxQpVOkQTX_A_ykUkhbrDTXKQT9tPkvoZcwlE6VRTSYJrqBqUMJV3YeL557cPMs1ThOlA/s320/defender%201957.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ralph Bellamy, Wm Shatner, Steve McQueen:<br />"The Defender" on Studio One 1957</td></tr></tbody></table> My high school grades were made up of highs and lows, and so
I was not at the top of my class. What
distinguished me most as "college material" was the ability to write. It was encouraged by my mother, more quietly
by my father, and nurtured by some of my teachers. I absorbed forms from what I read (newspapers, magazines and
books) but also from television.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> My junior and senior years of high school I won national Scholastic Magazine Writing Awards
with television scripts. My junior year
Second made me eligible for scholarships at two schools: the nearby University
of Pittsburgh, and Knox College in unknown Galesburg, Illinois. I applied for both, and I got scholarships
at both schools. But Pitt’s offer was
partial and unrelated to the award; Knox College offered me their full
four-year Writing Awards Scholarship, and after careful calculation and
soul-searching, that’s where I went.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <span style="font-family: inherit;">I
was 19 before I saw a stage play with professional actors in a real theatre,
and it wasn’t in or near my home town. Until then, I'd only seen drama in the living room. Television, including the influence of these dramas--the structures and rhythms I absorbed-- were part of what shaped my writing and my life, for better and
for worse. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">These 1950s dramas showed possibilities. Probably I was more directly influenced and inspired by the early 60s dramas I saw when I was a bit older. More on the 60s next time.</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-6943891679167085512023-02-05T22:16:00.006-08:002023-05-28T22:17:39.288-07:00TV and Me: Evolution of the Sitcom<p><i>Television and I grew up together. This is our story. Latest in a <a href="http://dreamingup.blogspot.com/search/label/TV%20and%20Me">series</a>.</i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCH7jfnTxcN9kezTrmuQYxRoDvG6bv5OqFFMYILxlEj784qClGPkQOat0UqwLf1ocGnQppgITLKUeivy4BAKRSrWncBUioaUPmHGExCWY9ueGnOnGxaM__LDB1jihvFe0of9kXA0qz3JTf7UCc8A-HzyypthAGI2oJHbXJ8j2AGIDfwES5Dg/s4032/jackie%20g02.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCH7jfnTxcN9kezTrmuQYxRoDvG6bv5OqFFMYILxlEj784qClGPkQOat0UqwLf1ocGnQppgITLKUeivy4BAKRSrWncBUioaUPmHGExCWY9ueGnOnGxaM__LDB1jihvFe0of9kXA0qz3JTf7UCc8A-HzyypthAGI2oJHbXJ8j2AGIDfwES5Dg/s320/jackie%20g02.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> Most TV variety shows featured comedy skits—either the host
interacting with guests (one improbable combination: Jimmy Durante and John
Wayne) or a small company of regulars performing one-of-a-kind skits and
parodies. But the various Sid Caesar
shows developed a repeated situation, with Sid and Imogene Coca (or later
Nanette Fabray) as a married couple, with Carl Reiner and other friends. Jackie Gleason took the next step with a
segment featuring the same characters in the same basic situation, including
its own title: <i>The Honeymooners. </i> For one season, in 1955-56, it became a stand-alone half hour
show: a situation comedy.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> By then there were lots of sitcoms on TV, many being direct copies
of popular radio shows. Radio is
generally credited as the medium that invented the sitcom, where it had evolved
in the same way: a segment repeated on variety shows that proved so popular
that it became its own program. For example, characters from a play were
imported to a Rudy Vallee variety, and soon after to a similar program starring
Kate Smith. It became the radio and
early television sitcom series, <i>The Aldridge Family</i>. (Curiously, I recall only Jimmy Lydon as
teenage Henry Aldridge in a series of feature films that I must have seen on
TV.)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> In a general way the theatrical roots of situation comedy
television shows go back through radio, vaudeville and burlesque to Roman
comedies, Shakespeare and twentieth century Broadway. Television made them more
intimate, their weekly appearance on one of three networks became a rhythm for
millions of viewers, and perhaps more than any other story form, they became
barometers of American life.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The key difference between situation comedy and other kinds
of comedy on television was the situation—continuing characters, usually in
some kind of family, in a stated social and cultural context which could be as
vague as Centerville or Springfield USA, or as specific as 1038 East Tremont Avenue, the Bronx.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzErmja2nXYUpKlCmuX7a77K_OOqFS_0-lKtLNVaDJJSKS3z5NKpBH27GRPIHJ3q7xvpYC1pCbf-b-AAdwP_FYXqUPh1_LlF78jT5vHsOh-6A_1RySBmBimwkIdsczM-gYo2jq4F229aT8-tdXnCoMkaqB1k9dFgbNIl5jzGE-RomV7OvNhg/s466/burns03.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="354" data-original-width="466" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzErmja2nXYUpKlCmuX7a77K_OOqFS_0-lKtLNVaDJJSKS3z5NKpBH27GRPIHJ3q7xvpYC1pCbf-b-AAdwP_FYXqUPh1_LlF78jT5vHsOh-6A_1RySBmBimwkIdsczM-gYo2jq4F229aT8-tdXnCoMkaqB1k9dFgbNIl5jzGE-RomV7OvNhg/w320-h243/burns03.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grace Allen, Harry Von Zell, George Burns</td></tr></tbody></table> There were hybrid forms.
The Burns and Allen show was partly a variation on their vaudeville
routine—Burns’ monologues and his zany dialogues with Gracie—but to fill the
half hour required a sitcom setting, their home and neighborhood. (Even the
commercials for Carnation Condensed Milk became part of the sitcom, with Harry
Von Zell as both character and pitchman.)
The Jack Benny Show was somewhat similar. The Danny Thomas show <i>Make Room for Daddy</i> was also a
hybrid of sitcom and variety show.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXbCzaMVFt5RgbF-hyoUa3crEEfOqnSLuNprGhwsTXgmxefXG1vVeif2ZHVS3fj_bBDdyeiOiYxLrxjNY5GMoy7jY9ib_dkF6_-Q5CQ4rt9mjWmOUecbS_4tmhWziYgwfoxW94glxUxNgGDFRE1hK3fw5JPO7STrIj0kA6-ND4B44zZKMjHw/s881/The_goldbergs_gertrude_berg_cbs.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="881" data-original-width="684" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXbCzaMVFt5RgbF-hyoUa3crEEfOqnSLuNprGhwsTXgmxefXG1vVeif2ZHVS3fj_bBDdyeiOiYxLrxjNY5GMoy7jY9ib_dkF6_-Q5CQ4rt9mjWmOUecbS_4tmhWziYgwfoxW94glxUxNgGDFRE1hK3fw5JPO7STrIj0kA6-ND4B44zZKMjHw/w310-h400/The_goldbergs_gertrude_berg_cbs.jpg" width="310" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Goldbergs, starring and written by<br />Gertrude Berg</td></tr></tbody></table>The family at home was the usual setting, though there were
also workplace-centered sitcoms. In
both cases, the context was usually urban, often New York City, and working
class. Some very early sitcoms also
emphasized urban ethnic characters, playing on the dangerous border of exaggerated familiar
characteristics and stereotype: <i>The
Goldbergs</i> (Jewish, the Bronx), <i>Duffy’s Tavern</i> (Irish, Manhattan),
the short-lived and controversial <i>Life With Luigi</i> (Italian immigrants,
Chicago) and the very controversial<i> Amos n Andy</i> (Black, Harlem.) <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Ralph Kramden of <i>The Honeymooners</i> was a bus driver
living with his wife in a shabby apartment in Brooklyn. Chester A. Riley of <i>The Life of Riley </i>worked
in an aircraft manufacturing plant in California. <i>My Friend Irma</i> (Manhattan boardinghouse) and Gale Storms’
frenetic <i>My Little Margie</i> (5<sup>th</sup> Avenue apartment) and the Danny Thomas <i>Make Room for Daddy</i> were set in
New York. And finally, <i>I Love Lucy</i>,
the most popular early sitcom that more than any other set the template for
those to come, was set in a modest apartment building in New York City. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLJuUnFzz7AYwiZfDrflxRHTNMsSkUaYj3RnskfpazsY5YU-hT9sr05VXZUEVGJ5iLxB6N-vPgb5-fPiZPkN2Ovpr7KCUaAITbut2SApVpDVgERPlKhcf4c2zzfeeUqx1TvHY3JPjoUddo8mL-YGjBP-S3XhKtK6zKcuYmaP_BX0X8-INZ7g/s1280/lucy03.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLJuUnFzz7AYwiZfDrflxRHTNMsSkUaYj3RnskfpazsY5YU-hT9sr05VXZUEVGJ5iLxB6N-vPgb5-fPiZPkN2Ovpr7KCUaAITbut2SApVpDVgERPlKhcf4c2zzfeeUqx1TvHY3JPjoUddo8mL-YGjBP-S3XhKtK6zKcuYmaP_BX0X8-INZ7g/s320/lucy03.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>As the 1950s went on, this pattern began to shift,
symbolized by the Ricardo and Mertz families <i>of I Love Lucy </i>moving out
of New York City, first to a more middle class suburb in Connecticut, and
finally west to California. This
reflects the ongoing reality of the 50s; new suburban housing was springing up
as the growing (and increasingly child-bearing) middle class abandoned the
cities, while in a companion postwar trend, New York City began losing its
dominance.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"> N</span></b>ew York, the center of TV production in the early 50s, has long been known as the preeminent center of the
arts in America, particularly performing arts, but it’s not generally
appreciated that one reason for this was because it had the largest potential audience, by far. In comparison to the
population of the rest of the country, New York was very, very big, for a very
long time.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVpHVi5vwijt4S20fMTn5Cw_iT6wGrC-F9NAyJoG3VJp2syRkOg4613znK13AFDeIepli72tNNS4UB924Ev-JUqB6MeUZ3Gcle820HZCmcRkHApwGSbwLs9j-lwxIRCGYQJEYT2XkjxA55OnfF-ldYYx4tNhRtBCqKfg7bMfBwvsqv-qzPvA/s651/lunchrushfifthavenueandreasfeininger1950.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="651" data-original-width="512" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVpHVi5vwijt4S20fMTn5Cw_iT6wGrC-F9NAyJoG3VJp2syRkOg4613znK13AFDeIepli72tNNS4UB924Ev-JUqB6MeUZ3Gcle820HZCmcRkHApwGSbwLs9j-lwxIRCGYQJEYT2XkjxA55OnfF-ldYYx4tNhRtBCqKfg7bMfBwvsqv-qzPvA/s320/lunchrushfifthavenueandreasfeininger1950.jpg" width="252" /></a></div> For example, in 1910, New York wasn’t just the biggest city
in America—it was bigger than any single states in the Union except 3. In 1930 and 1940, it was bigger than all the
states except Illinois and Pennsylvania, which had the second and third largest
cities (Chicago and Philadelphia.) As
late as 1940, the population of the entire state of California was under 7
million, and the entire state of Texas contained less than 6 and a half
million. The City of New York alone
embraced seven and a half million.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> In 1910, Chicago had a population of 2 million, Philadelpha
1.5. At 5 million, New York was larger
than the two combined, and more than twice as large as Chicago. No other U.S. city but these three topped a
million people until 1930, when Detroit and Los Angeles joined the club. But
even in 1940, New York City was larger than the next three cities combined, and
almost the next four.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div> But World War II industrial production had spread across the
country, not only in the New York area, Detroit and Pittsburgh, but also to the
aircraft industry in California and the Northwest, and to military bases and
munitions factories in Texas and other states. Veterans who'd left home for other states and overseas spread out, heading west in particular. The rest of the country was growing. Meanwhile, more prosperous New
Yorkers were abandoning Brooklyn and the Bronx for Levittown and other suburbs
on Long Island, where its counties of Nassau and Sussex were the fastest
growing counties in America. <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQsG29IycF_Cph77V1IeLxmvAIvxirJMW3xaLmxWkyMVpQ9RUIGXKitHy0x5HXWCUQYGPnJG-XflYtGgtxcNKpxmXLOFS2wPGgHEFp7uwxPICRJQlwYz9EVxABh-A0oG9bkUzNLYJSXuLD-6vPcjY-5AbwWK2PJAP0M0aSzcXAe1eBjG2g2A/s486/1946-broadway-theater_444.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="486" data-original-width="363" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQsG29IycF_Cph77V1IeLxmvAIvxirJMW3xaLmxWkyMVpQ9RUIGXKitHy0x5HXWCUQYGPnJG-XflYtGgtxcNKpxmXLOFS2wPGgHEFp7uwxPICRJQlwYz9EVxABh-A0oG9bkUzNLYJSXuLD-6vPcjY-5AbwWK2PJAP0M0aSzcXAe1eBjG2g2A/s320/1946-broadway-theater_444.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>For the first half of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, almost
all legitimate live theatre in America originated in New York—in hundreds of
theatres, generating hundreds of traveling shows and stock companies fanning
out to the rest of the country. So naturally, much of the acting, writing and
directing talent was in New York as well.
This was possible because New York was so big that it could provide
audiences all on its own. Theatre was
part of New York’s internal culture.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> This link between population and theatre was first pointed
out to me by the great American actor Jason Robards, Jr. in an interview I did
with him backstage at the Plymouth Theatre on Broadway in the 1980s.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He described the quantitative decline of New York theatre
since the 1920s when his father began as an actor, through the postwar period
when he started out, to the 1980s present as his sons were starting their careers, and linked it to the flight to the suburbs
and consequent decline of the New York City audience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Now,” he said, “I think theatre in New York is going to become
like the opera, if it isn’t already: a small, specialized thing.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And except for the Disneyfied Broadway
blockbusters for tourists, that’s pretty much what has happened.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Though New York had lost out to Hollywood as the film capital,
it was the place that early television production was centered in the early
1950s, particularly live television.
The network headquarters and studios were there, as was the acting and
directing talent from theatre and theatre training. Also Hollywood wasn’t yet
fully competing: the studios were afraid of television eroding its audience,
and hoped to starve the new medium. So they resisted devoting their talent and
support to TV production.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho7anpR5IBxB4BueknGPKKczkAkQjp3fGfBZjQyIRDgqHL983fJg72JJSQv0AsqVnXOcIAWsQzAO2gtre4N97BJ9b6ZbVnsZW6RwLl0L4DISvRWr2QFizZsQjE-TC_wPUrNQpa8ozcV9iFLaYz3h-qW85iSPJ-0xzAN8XLFtBaSDwoJ-S2eA/s720/crowds-watching-television-720x405.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho7anpR5IBxB4BueknGPKKczkAkQjp3fGfBZjQyIRDgqHL983fJg72JJSQv0AsqVnXOcIAWsQzAO2gtre4N97BJ9b6ZbVnsZW6RwLl0L4DISvRWr2QFizZsQjE-TC_wPUrNQpa8ozcV9iFLaYz3h-qW85iSPJ-0xzAN8XLFtBaSDwoJ-S2eA/s320/crowds-watching-television-720x405.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> But another reason for TV being centered in and on New York was the size of the New York audience. And as in the best days of theatre, New York was large
enough to provide an early TV audience, even if they were watching in bars and
other public venues. So a lot of those
early programs were made to appeal to New Yorkers.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> However, that was when there weren’t a lot of TV sets in the rest
of America. In 1950, 90% of American families didn't have a TV set. But by 1959, 90% of them did. Television became a
national medium during the 1950s, and advertisers took notice. They wanted to appeal to a larger public,
and hopefully a more affluent audience.
Hollywood began to take another look, too. More TV shows would be made in southern California studios.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> So when Lucy and Desi had a baby—thus joining the baby boom,
and largely ending sitcoms about singles or childless couples—they also moved out of New
York. In fact the show had always been
shot in California. Now it was admitting it. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGQgHzOODNPu28I8OPvvI2vnpIsUdEIUacZVXsiq_Y5VaDP9ELqGE6-9_KkGD8Bv6wcB8y9TXvpBvMc3xSsFW_qcRiBDhKJSEs2M6CjTMaNrHXXuGwhBlc6ReVQqkDgIPiby8t_Byj8XPZpoz4soDl4y_kumd9wr5sCxOh3n8yIjarKOukMQ/s500/litb_cleaver_house_w_cast.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGQgHzOODNPu28I8OPvvI2vnpIsUdEIUacZVXsiq_Y5VaDP9ELqGE6-9_KkGD8Bv6wcB8y9TXvpBvMc3xSsFW_qcRiBDhKJSEs2M6CjTMaNrHXXuGwhBlc6ReVQqkDgIPiby8t_Byj8XPZpoz4soDl4y_kumd9wr5sCxOh3n8yIjarKOukMQ/s320/litb_cleaver_house_w_cast.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><i>The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet</i> was a precursor
to new sitcoms set in suburbia, or small town neighborhoods that were the
suburban ideal, notably the hit shows <i>Father Knows Best, Leave It To Beaver</i>
and the <i>Donna Reed Show. </i>Later
series in the 60s such as <i>My Three Sons</i> (set in a California suburb)
would continue the pattern.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The 1950s were becoming the Organization Man decade, and
these sitcom families were generally more prosperous. The dads were more
educated, with white collar jobs and professions. They set a subtly high material standard that advertisers hoped
would fuel aspirations at a time of upward mobility, but it was still out of
reach for much of the audience. In an
era when the average family income was $12,000, it was estimated that the
lifestyle of the Andersons, the Cleavers etc. would require $40,000 a year. </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBBMMfdVTa_x5PZGKKFL5JeWGmAMnFcngsBVMrc-i3W69y1fIGdWDZYUVzwKApJFDhM1CX5ZwzhX-AsNWlBGFam6ySwVkP8GHYP6C58V3BA1h2PspmJVd1bdLQf-KXcLyCppv2jzljkLyGZQJs6u2d0hMUUzz3wkaru9IWhBaN4fgTy93XjQ/s500/mama02.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="382" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBBMMfdVTa_x5PZGKKFL5JeWGmAMnFcngsBVMrc-i3W69y1fIGdWDZYUVzwKApJFDhM1CX5ZwzhX-AsNWlBGFam6ySwVkP8GHYP6C58V3BA1h2PspmJVd1bdLQf-KXcLyCppv2jzljkLyGZQJs6u2d0hMUUzz3wkaru9IWhBaN4fgTy93XjQ/s320/mama02.jpg" width="244" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mama</td></tr></tbody></table>The broad humor (and ethnic humor), outsized characters and
extreme situations of early sitcoms gave way to more subtlety and an attempt at
more ordinary problems and situations as the sitcoms became suburbanized.
(Though not all of the early sitcoms were frenetic with extreme characters and
crazy situations. <i>Mama</i>--from the
book and movie <i>I Remember Mama</i>-- was the story of a Norwegian immigrant
family, but it was much quieter. A plot
might involve Nelse breaking his glasses playing basketball, and his father
coming up with a solution by attaching an elastic band to them, to keep them on
during the game.)<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> But in general, the loud and/or confused fathers were
replaced by wiser and more understanding fathers; the dizzy mothers gave way to calmer
and-- especially with Donna Reed--somewhat more dimensional mothers.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> (In another
demographic shift, a third of Americans lived on farms in 1920, down to 15% in
1950 and just over 8% in 1960, perhaps inspiring nostalgic sitcoms like <i>The
Beverly Hillbillies</i> and <i>Green Acres</i> in that decade. Clowns were
originally country bumpkins whose clodhoppers and lack of manners were deemed
humorous. Fifties kids experienced the archetype in Disney’s Goofy and the
puppet Mortimer Snerd. Those 60s TV
sitcoms were perhaps that archetype’s last obvious gasp, as the countryside was
trampled by tract houses and shopping malls, and invisible and voracious
agribusinesses took over the rest.)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><b><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeLix4xK614WTD-TXnVVMKmS2LzwQkMl5Z3YGTzEjRmxD1G-kiNGw_yC_XqNMajOTY1RF45TTL3rfXU-6kUqKPtTR6h8ruzu0xBTyhngSvdJYv2q2F4If0KolQqOEED0D1elOUVqjkAs0xkpyb15BMIxxpbKrOc2GRB0NT9ZQ1czegddFl-A/s480/duffy.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="480" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeLix4xK614WTD-TXnVVMKmS2LzwQkMl5Z3YGTzEjRmxD1G-kiNGw_yC_XqNMajOTY1RF45TTL3rfXU-6kUqKPtTR6h8ruzu0xBTyhngSvdJYv2q2F4If0KolQqOEED0D1elOUVqjkAs0xkpyb15BMIxxpbKrOc2GRB0NT9ZQ1czegddFl-A/s320/duffy.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></b></div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"> I</span></b> remember seeing most of the early television sitcoms, like
<i>The Goldbergs</i> and <i>Duffy’s Tavern</i> (at least as far as the opening
when the barman answers the phone: “Duffy’s Tavern, where the elite meet to
eat… Duffy ain’t here. Oh, hi
Duffy.”) At the ages of four through
seven or so, I couldn’t always follow stories, but I appreciated the same comic
elements I liked in variety shows—the gestures, the slapstick, facial expressions (and double-takes) and repeated
catchphrases, the eccentric characters from Phil Silvers to <i>Our Miss Brooks</i>,
along with the physical humor prominent in sitcoms from Lucy to <i>I Married
Joan.</i><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> By the time I was able to grasp the plots, sitcoms of the
suburban era were doing less physical humor while dealing more with believable
behavior. As a child I was keenly interested in what adults considered
acceptable behavior, and so these shows became instructive. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcgav7WNiwG0SR7TeDpVDeju_z2xn_Kxu2yaOSJC_EhKlPZzxUy0Et9exSpK2vJDFXhfZWBUGvoIKoZYwJsBRRBqAiLdVMwsSn21rOb_0_n7rLVFq4-ydXXEr_geuxYySHRFlwQ_nhx144vFgFb01k_eRl5eqIm3cgkeGmJ6VYVTvLR2q8Sg/s500/donna03.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcgav7WNiwG0SR7TeDpVDeju_z2xn_Kxu2yaOSJC_EhKlPZzxUy0Et9exSpK2vJDFXhfZWBUGvoIKoZYwJsBRRBqAiLdVMwsSn21rOb_0_n7rLVFq4-ydXXEr_geuxYySHRFlwQ_nhx144vFgFb01k_eRl5eqIm3cgkeGmJ6VYVTvLR2q8Sg/s320/donna03.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Donna Reed</td></tr></tbody></table>What is acceptable and successful behavior is a matter of
context and culture. The situations in situation comedy made them about
behavior—and how actual behavior contrasts with standards of behavior is a lot
of what makes it funny. As a kid you
are just learning those standards, and I learned a lot by what I was expected
to laugh at in situation comedies.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> But there was another factor at work. These suburban sitcoms
were becoming prominent just at the time that many from the working class were
entering the middle class, with its different mores, culture and expectations,
which were perhaps new to viewers from that working class cultural background as well. That was my background, so through the
suburban sitcoms I was getting suggestions about behaviors of all kinds in the
world I was expected to enter. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_IY3Rsa90QLIZhz2CVymojGcDMQHSW2MbSN65gVA9PAxtm-BVIRfGk2df4Qx89x__LipoN8TrbaoQm5mrE1Jz2OnP4wMW5zFQ8odl3IZm79xta0qjf61D2L6AoP5feQDlo3yjuPJhUsuTxOse62lcSAEj5Wc4HOqFzG5g-nyAagxMGSkN9w/s3000/commuters.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1998" data-original-width="3000" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_IY3Rsa90QLIZhz2CVymojGcDMQHSW2MbSN65gVA9PAxtm-BVIRfGk2df4Qx89x__LipoN8TrbaoQm5mrE1Jz2OnP4wMW5zFQ8odl3IZm79xta0qjf61D2L6AoP5feQDlo3yjuPJhUsuTxOse62lcSAEj5Wc4HOqFzG5g-nyAagxMGSkN9w/s320/commuters.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>I vividly recall an early example from the sitcom-within one
of Sid Caesar’s variety shows, <i>The Caesar Hour.</i> The segments of varying
length (some took up nearly an entire show) were called “The Commuters,” with
Caesar and Nanette Fabray as a new suburban couple. In one story they were out
for dinner at a restaurant with another couple. They were all sitting in a booth and talking. A waiter brought a
salad bowl. Carl Reiner as his friend told Sid to “toss the salad, Bob.” Sid
did one of his series of takes—he didn’t understand what he was supposed to do.
Carl kept talking to someone, only to say again, more insistently, “toss the
salad!” So Sid tossed it up in the air, lettuce leaves and tomato slices
falling on everyone.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> This was a time in the 1950s when dining out in a restaurant
was new to a lot of Americans, especially those from working class
background. Here was physical comedy as
the payoff for a common problem—the uncertainty of etiquette in an unfamiliar
middle class situation. "Toss the salad”
was a new concept to a city guy, probably from a poor immigrant family, as well as verbally a funny ambiguous expression. It was just another mystery of middle class suburban manners. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But it also happened to be a new concept to me. I was
vaguely aware that the people on television were richer and more sophisticated
than anyone I actually knew. So I saw it perhaps as something “ritzy” people
said and did. But it also seemed possible that it was something I would need to
know, or something I should know—something that adults knew.<br />
</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6ITYBTlWgKkZMrU0m_iPCVblWGa0vFPpTDJkKVboF8QQBwL5U9zn2hrdADNpahIDepJGstxAloUqjhAYzlYm3ag4VmrDLTF1WwhL3OmuagvAvrAdSqS6iP_o2BlKdgIQmxEjKsJjPgBatihT66qNzlnIuP3fXArKN8m7gaNlJIgteZafopQ/s480/commuters02.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="480" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6ITYBTlWgKkZMrU0m_iPCVblWGa0vFPpTDJkKVboF8QQBwL5U9zn2hrdADNpahIDepJGstxAloUqjhAYzlYm3ag4VmrDLTF1WwhL3OmuagvAvrAdSqS6iP_o2BlKdgIQmxEjKsJjPgBatihT66qNzlnIuP3fXArKN8m7gaNlJIgteZafopQ/w200-h150/commuters02.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>When you’re a kid just about everything “adult” is strange-- tossing a salad as
much as foreign movies. Kids get told when they’re doing something “wrong,” and
that covers a lot of ground.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So you
have to spend some time trying to imagine why adults do and say things, and
what they mean. Sid Caesar’s humor was often based on exaggeration, and on
taking something literally that wasn’t meant to be taken that way. It’s exactly
the kind of humor that appeals to children, because we often made those
mistakes, and we also often thought adults were strange and didn’t make much
sense. Sid Caesar represented us, as well as the urban working class trying to
fit into white collar suburbia. <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaTONQjK4qhTk-jJ7rBe2rpu_J_8oEiwWH9lbtSv4--OjlmfNiaiQChg4nUmXlWvyamkTRqPVm-B6rD_k4zZAs9sjQ-UjkgV7JmkBsbRQMGYl3SG7yA1NYbGT2nKRbG-JK7tUiZYEUFuncTE_pzqimvuobxi95WOGdBGjqoAApCD41by1Vfw/s987/cfa44dfd601ecb7cc77dce7520c89f13--ricky-nelson-year-old.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="987" data-original-width="736" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaTONQjK4qhTk-jJ7rBe2rpu_J_8oEiwWH9lbtSv4--OjlmfNiaiQChg4nUmXlWvyamkTRqPVm-B6rD_k4zZAs9sjQ-UjkgV7JmkBsbRQMGYl3SG7yA1NYbGT2nKRbG-JK7tUiZYEUFuncTE_pzqimvuobxi95WOGdBGjqoAApCD41by1Vfw/s320/cfa44dfd601ecb7cc77dce7520c89f13--ricky-nelson-year-old.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>Through sitcoms I learned about expectations and procedures
of adults and children, including older kids.
I more or less grew up with Ricky Nelson. There was an idealization of
family behavior among the Nelsons as well as the Andersons, the Cleavers and
the Stones (Donna Reed Show.) I
sometimes wonder how my parents were responding on the sofa behind me as I lay
sprawled in front of the TV set, as they saw these families solve problems
without raised voices and threats, tears and tantrums.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> By the age of eight I apparently had grasped enough about
stories to write one. As the result of
a classroom exercise in third grade, I went home and wrote my first play. Its specific inspiration was the
introduction to “White Christmas” I read in the sheet music on my Uncle Carl’s
piano (it was a new song then) suggesting that it was possible to have
Christmas without snow—something that hadn’t occurred to me. But the play itself was all sitcom, with a
sitcom family of father and mother, older children John and Mary, and the comic
little brother, Bobby. My third grade class put it on (with John Glancy as John and Mary Jo Repasky as Mary.)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: rgb(61, 133, 198);"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> </span>By fourth grade, I had my own rep company in the form of my
Cub Scout den, and the monthly skits I wrote for us to perform at the big pack meetings in the Cathedral basement were mostly
inspired by TV shows: a pirate adventure was one, and another was the George
Gobel variety show, including the sitcom within it.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><b><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig8LpspzHRVFhrX7WFd29ywIbajN2_kE86WFnf9Lrv_HWsTHQisZrU2MMmWiNyw1V0YjsbgdJl0G2yDfcdHwoZG9WZNH5reyXI8KvLeAQ4_w-fugEChIx87GbJy5BLXHGTeAGwERsetqb2Mw277SF2lwWHHQRuWEWZuIW27E4WddJYPe7Egw/s242/peepers.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="242" data-original-width="208" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig8LpspzHRVFhrX7WFd29ywIbajN2_kE86WFnf9Lrv_HWsTHQisZrU2MMmWiNyw1V0YjsbgdJl0G2yDfcdHwoZG9WZNH5reyXI8KvLeAQ4_w-fugEChIx87GbJy5BLXHGTeAGwERsetqb2Mw277SF2lwWHHQRuWEWZuIW27E4WddJYPe7Egw/s1600/peepers.jpg" width="208" /></a></span></b></div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"> I</span></b> remember those long-running suburban shows the best,
probably because I was older and they were kept alive in reruns for another
decade. But I had some favorites that aren’t so well remembered, like the two
shows starring Wally Cox, <i>Mr. Peepers</i> (1952-55) and the <i>Adventures of
Hiram Holiday</i> (1956-7.) I remember <i>Mr.
Peepers</i> especially, a live situation comedy set in a high school—the
perpetually befuddled Mrs. Gurney, and the character played by Tony
Randall. I also liked Peter Lawford in <i>Dear
Phoebe</i> and then in <i>The Thin Man </i>(combining mystery and comedy) with
Phyllis Kirk.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Another favorite was
<i>The People’s Choice</i> starring Jackie Cooper, and Cleo, the sardonic
basset hound who commented on the action, and though it belongs more to the 60s, Jackie Coopers’ <i>Hennessy</i>
series, which started in 1959. Though I
still cherish skillful slapstick, these quieter comedies also appealed to
me. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBoo-EJmqJ4blbuUJ2DTSxSY6W0r-IDL6S-qTQql_RxTZptbuWHdd6yuVvvbVWgDqzgBfvIE4AqOUKJIqGW4zd8ilNUJo7rf9b5UPZYC8QQoJaOpYnKevHvSuNlhMMJdyxqOnkEDeNgcGak9UVC7e5FIwBnKWOEzvEnqaKajH9Q-CVNyDMeA/s331/life_of_riley2%20(1).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="331" data-original-width="260" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBoo-EJmqJ4blbuUJ2DTSxSY6W0r-IDL6S-qTQql_RxTZptbuWHdd6yuVvvbVWgDqzgBfvIE4AqOUKJIqGW4zd8ilNUJo7rf9b5UPZYC8QQoJaOpYnKevHvSuNlhMMJdyxqOnkEDeNgcGak9UVC7e5FIwBnKWOEzvEnqaKajH9Q-CVNyDMeA/s320/life_of_riley2%20(1).jpg" width="251" /></a></div>But probably the
1950s situation comedy that to me fondly represents this era more than any other was <i>The Life of Riley</i>. I knew this
fish out of water (working class guy in suburban California) series so well
that I can still recall enough of the opening narration to tell you that
Marjorie Reynolds played Peg, and Tom D’Andrea was Gillis. I may not have cared much about the stories
at times, and just waited for the closeup of the forlorn face of William Bendix
as he spoke the magic words, <i>“What a revoltin’ development this is!”</i><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <i>The Life of Riley</i> could remain in memory also
because, at least for awhile, we watched it as a family. At our house we ate supper at 6 pm, so we finished in plenty
of time for the news (network news was all of 15 minutes then) and Captain Video
or some other kidcentric show at 7. The
evening shows could begin as early as 7:30.
It may be necessary to reiterate that like everyone we knew, we had but
one television set, which sat immovably in the living room. So family members might drift in and out,
watching the screen in various combinations, depending in part on what was
on. My sisters as well as I usually
sprawled on the floor, with a parent or two behind us on the sofa.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> There were times that our whole family watched, with variety
shows and sitcoms as the more likely occasions. But my one specific memory of a family viewing ritual must have
occurred only in one TV season, of 1955-56, when I was 11, my sister Kathy was
5 and then 6, and sister Debbie was 2.
It was on Friday nights, when we watched <i>Ozzie and Harriet</i>
together at 7:30, then <i>Mama</i> at 8, and <i>The Life of Riley </i>at 8:30.
At some point we were all together on or around the sofa. That’s because at some point my mother made
us popcorn. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-81963846424331984932023-01-16T21:30:00.003-08:002023-05-28T22:13:58.233-07:00TV and Me: Variety's Last Stand<p><i> Television and I grew up together. This is our story. Latest in a <a href="http://dreamingup.blogspot.com/search/label/TV%20and%20Me">series</a>.</i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUuWbYfl7Crc-4G1AZ4VMPgRW-HfPHUTMDqkVuzBJml7ZkALNCCMYphGcTll7VMnKcEWU5k06EPr4LHDHBc6SfLKIj2nFL5nhnHSVPpveNA_0EKdfk0-yFhE_gEXt5xicpPnjemYNJ9LCL__XuqJU3QYORMd1d9QsXR1ov8F88zKiDrdWcxQ/s612/sul%20showa.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="483" data-original-width="612" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUuWbYfl7Crc-4G1AZ4VMPgRW-HfPHUTMDqkVuzBJml7ZkALNCCMYphGcTll7VMnKcEWU5k06EPr4LHDHBc6SfLKIj2nFL5nhnHSVPpveNA_0EKdfk0-yFhE_gEXt5xicpPnjemYNJ9LCL__XuqJU3QYORMd1d9QsXR1ov8F88zKiDrdWcxQ/w400-h316/sul%20showa.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />When network television first blossomed in 1950, one of its
first and most popular forms for evening programming was the variety show. From a technical standpoint, variety shows
were essentially a series of live performances on a stage, with plenty of room
for large television cameras and predictable lighting, and so they were within
the capabilities of early television production.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> But they were also heirs to entertainment forms that go back
through American and world history.
Simply from the past half century, they had strong connections to radio
shows, stage revues, vaudeville, burlesque, nightclub, Borscht Belt summer
hotel entertainments and beyond, with elements of pantomime and the
circus. Moreover, the first TV variety
shows featured performers who learned their craft and developed their stage
identities in several of these venues.
They embodied that entertainment history. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgypby787hHHwAPa0SVCEA_WzV-MU_0n3XpopAnyqjbUDcNewQHDYYh3Ekigjv4_-QbxcgyRzDyD-ByeCubS0DkrRyy_vYBjgwrENVjbeoPAoyWH-n7ejSDw9LdoKq95kChTyTq_ozhceRJ8X-RdJ3Pn5QtcUOxutxNam6L3tN7bvDKW2Azkg/s639/jimmy%20d.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="639" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgypby787hHHwAPa0SVCEA_WzV-MU_0n3XpopAnyqjbUDcNewQHDYYh3Ekigjv4_-QbxcgyRzDyD-ByeCubS0DkrRyy_vYBjgwrENVjbeoPAoyWH-n7ejSDw9LdoKq95kChTyTq_ozhceRJ8X-RdJ3Pn5QtcUOxutxNam6L3tN7bvDKW2Azkg/s320/jimmy%20d.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>For instance, Jimmy Durante, who by 1950 had been an
entertainment star for some thirty years. He was so famous that well-known
writer Gene Fowler wrote his biography in 1951, titled <i>Schnozzola</i>. In typical New York style of the time, the
word referring to Durante’s trademark big nose combines Yiddish and Italian.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The son of Italian immigrants, Jimmy Durante was born in the
Bronx in 1893. The woman who would
become his mother had arrived from Salerno the very day that the Statue of
Liberty was officially unveiled in New York Harbor, in October 1886. His father had emigrated a few years
earlier, also from Solerno, beginning in America as a laborer before earning
enough to open a barber shop, the trade he had trained for in Italy. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglvEBAsc9JG11tf2nranT0J6C8kEWtrOQ4c9V2KH1HYldYpJYteDSl2fovqQk5XPFTP8tdKQT6BzVC-fd1GIIk9qpQYn07vBeovxTJOFRpF4Sa4DJJys2mWTe4doVSlBJL6RolJSHVvGpeVBSQpnaNfkotHHNHhNL1V_P2CBcU9bykp_P1sA/s225/jimmy%20d00.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="197" data-original-width="225" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglvEBAsc9JG11tf2nranT0J6C8kEWtrOQ4c9V2KH1HYldYpJYteDSl2fovqQk5XPFTP8tdKQT6BzVC-fd1GIIk9qpQYn07vBeovxTJOFRpF4Sa4DJJys2mWTe4doVSlBJL6RolJSHVvGpeVBSQpnaNfkotHHNHhNL1V_P2CBcU9bykp_P1sA/s1600/jimmy%20d00.jpg" width="225" /></a></div> Jimmy Durante started piano lessons in eighth grade—the last
year of formal schooling he completed—with his sights already set on the latest
rage of ragtime. His first gig was on
Coney Island in 1910. Next he played at
a rowdy Chinatown club where Irving Berlin once worked. A summer gig at a club
back on Coney Island had him paired up with a hyperactive young singer, Eddie
Cantor. He played all night in some 20
similar venues where he became known as Ragtime Jimmy.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> By 1917 ragtime was morphing into jazz, namely the Dixieland
coming up from New Orleans. Durante
brought four players from there to New York and formed Jimmy Durante’s New
Orleans Jazz Band. On some numbers he
stood up at the piano and joked with the band, adding another characteristic to
his reputation. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9BsEdxLCpvE7lAmaZwbOyRpMhJzZMcBgPjDHbK4yvj5M4tdB26SywbgZUtsKFgH3nQa7neUQbQlSNg65kaalQRrVuvAcU10002Lfiojcb-cGdDXrg9iDgv0d_pZ5X1wD0bakXIRBShQmaIbh4D-PI6slhhXrIN3r9IBFcvRLxW8xfsq8Saw/s400/836961_8.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="320" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9BsEdxLCpvE7lAmaZwbOyRpMhJzZMcBgPjDHbK4yvj5M4tdB26SywbgZUtsKFgH3nQa7neUQbQlSNg65kaalQRrVuvAcU10002Lfiojcb-cGdDXrg9iDgv0d_pZ5X1wD0bakXIRBShQmaIbh4D-PI6slhhXrIN3r9IBFcvRLxW8xfsq8Saw/w160-h200/836961_8.jpg" width="160" /></a></div> By the early 20s he became part owner of his first night
spot, the Durant Club. Soon he was
partnering with singer Eddie Jackson and dancer Lou Clayton. Besides music, comic banter and skits became
part of the act, all at a frenetic high-spirited pace. They were an immediate hit, as was the club in
Prohibition New York, with customers that included the chronicler of the milieu,
Damon Runyon, and George M. Cohan as well as the top politicians and gangsters
of the day. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Though vaudeville circuits traveled to many cities and
towns, the capital of vaudeville was New York. By the late 20s, the team of
Clayton, Jackson and Durante were hit performers on Manhattan’s top vaudeville
stages. The vaudeville equivalent of
Carnegie Hall was the Palace theatre, and playing the Palace was the
vaudevillian’s dream. Durante and
company not only played the Palace—in their first week they broke its
attendance records.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW7IwpmS-3bn_lhBsvX-W-y539waI2Epl8EkLXaeI4olegfP1B0PtOPckGqdYreQfqaSrucXqBZW9Da2RKW_D4NEZqpcYXhrhp6rPz4lqjEC8GvljhzNOeG6SLEbAe9zuNJMVoA4sM6K2jN-iekFa8JsbUgyuCFjJIWMXzHt5LB-gT6CxWzw/s1021/Speak_Easily_(1932)_1.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="694" data-original-width="1021" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW7IwpmS-3bn_lhBsvX-W-y539waI2Epl8EkLXaeI4olegfP1B0PtOPckGqdYreQfqaSrucXqBZW9Da2RKW_D4NEZqpcYXhrhp6rPz4lqjEC8GvljhzNOeG6SLEbAe9zuNJMVoA4sM6K2jN-iekFa8JsbUgyuCFjJIWMXzHt5LB-gT6CxWzw/s320/Speak_Easily_(1932)_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Buster Keaton, Thelma Todd and Durante in<br />1932 "Speaking Easily"</td></tr></tbody></table> They performed in a Ziegfield show with music and lyrics by
George and Ira Gershwin, and an orchestra conducted by Duke Ellington. <i>Show Girl</i> was a Broadway hit until
the Depression hit it. Durante headed
for Hollywood, where he made movies throughout the 30s and 40s. He did other Broadway shows and began a
career on radio, where he had a hit with a show that partnered him with a young
Garry Moore. He continued on radio well
into the 1950s.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> From the evidence of 1959 recordings, Durante remained an
accomplished and inventive pianist with his own style, but sitting at the keys
became a decreasing part of his evolving act. He was more often on his feet,
dancing and prancing in vaudeville stage style, or doing physical stunts and
takes. Though the characters he played in movies weren’t too far removed from
himself, he could act a convincing scene. His baggy, rumpled suits and slouch
hat, his exasperated frown and emphasis on his substantial nose, all became his
signature clown suit. All of this made
him appealing for the visual medium of television. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFznQMJ4cDsqGdNjOIIOjPkOh_C7VvptSA4Weuy3tr_YN5_lDwPaIzbvEdklpmxiZD5W9zgJiPxeuaIaUQFqUEPwqHnXpK2Lwa3QJCdXVIHhbR8VlJZBj4YqoXx374uZd5T0AkFYxsFgjiIYFm7XL35Vhx6SxAB0fxLG3GltuyGgM3-b-yFw/s814/jimmydurante.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="814" data-original-width="640" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFznQMJ4cDsqGdNjOIIOjPkOh_C7VvptSA4Weuy3tr_YN5_lDwPaIzbvEdklpmxiZD5W9zgJiPxeuaIaUQFqUEPwqHnXpK2Lwa3QJCdXVIHhbR8VlJZBj4YqoXx374uZd5T0AkFYxsFgjiIYFm7XL35Vhx6SxAB0fxLG3GltuyGgM3-b-yFw/s320/jimmydurante.jpg" width="252" /></a></div>Though based on his Bronx malapropisms, his club and
Broadway patter and the lyrics to his songs were verbally sophisticated, while
also being corny and surreal. There were often more words than notes as his
verbal gymnastics and interplay with the band took precedence. All of this also made the transition to
television, though in simplified form.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Durante’s first TV gig was as one of the rotating hosts of
the Four Star Revue (later changed to All Star Revue), broadcast on NBC
beginning in 1950. The multiple hosts
were standard in the first variety shows, though not all stuck with the format. Apparently the idea was to
attract viewers who might want to see what the stars behind those radio voices
looked like in action. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> Durante hosted a total of 24 one hour shows over the first
three seasons (on Saturday nights), before moving over to the more popular
Colgate Comedy Hour, also on NBC (on Sunday nights.) Though he hosted only eight shows, they were seen by many more
viewers—this was a highly watched show, and by 1954, a lot more families had TV
sets. He then moved over to The Texaco
Star Theatre, alternating for a season with Donald O’Connor, and then appearing
weekly in his own Jimmy Durante Show through the 1955-56 season. In his early
60s, Jimmy Durante was a television star.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF_liVLtPRcJho3ns5s40BR4M5A7PYtxzQaz6Z1Qh9JOPN9rOX_90nM2n9MfSLFkrS8nDbDSyigOH1TLAMluSoBTGjr267_9n14u1O_1D2Hp3hPOSIkMcqxydZpkTEWkHo1PSLM-VV67RXRND3aSTb6HdyeztQRcnRRfmH04smMiPUhFmqHw/s689/frank-sinatra-1947-jimmy-durante.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="689" data-original-width="610" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF_liVLtPRcJho3ns5s40BR4M5A7PYtxzQaz6Z1Qh9JOPN9rOX_90nM2n9MfSLFkrS8nDbDSyigOH1TLAMluSoBTGjr267_9n14u1O_1D2Hp3hPOSIkMcqxydZpkTEWkHo1PSLM-VV67RXRND3aSTb6HdyeztQRcnRRfmH04smMiPUhFmqHw/w177-h200/frank-sinatra-1947-jimmy-durante.jpg" width="177" /></a></div> In many ways Durante’s appeal was unique. His style was one of a kind, and his
personality seemed generous and genuine, especially when working with co-stars. (Frank Sinatra never looked happier than when he was working with Durante.) As occasionally happens, Durante actually was genuine and generous offstage
as well. Gene Fowler refers to his
“grotesque tenderness,” and estimates that he regularly gave away at least 40%
of what he earned.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOQDLt5f4gttDZDvPbQVEDt7pMxaF6pcMwe16mGJiMdc5VvaXR_57lBbGy_lcEz4HYrnbM5_ZFY3me6vJJzhP2hLycUW5dKM1R6UGyeVSpec-T-KENz_dzxbTbVtqrdcnUY4faF2qeQZBfyfOdQ2N1YBylfuRt3gWme38s_YcfblE3IWaUJA/s432/berle02.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="336" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOQDLt5f4gttDZDvPbQVEDt7pMxaF6pcMwe16mGJiMdc5VvaXR_57lBbGy_lcEz4HYrnbM5_ZFY3me6vJJzhP2hLycUW5dKM1R6UGyeVSpec-T-KENz_dzxbTbVtqrdcnUY4faF2qeQZBfyfOdQ2N1YBylfuRt3gWme38s_YcfblE3IWaUJA/w156-h200/berle02.jpg" width="156" /></a></div> But Durante was hardly alone in bringing a long resume in
multiple performance venues to early TV variety shows. Milton Berle was a child actor in silent
films before developing his skills as a vaudeville comic (which usually
involved a little singing, dancing and acting as well), beginning at age 16. By the 1930s he was performing in nightclubs. He dabbled in movies but set his sights on
radio in the 1940s. In 1948 he became
one of the rotating hosts of Texaco Star Theatre, and quickly proved so popular
that it became his show. He reproduced
elements of his late 40s radio variety show, adding visual slapstick,
cross-dressing and skits from vaudeville.
He became the first major television star with adult audiences,
dominating Tuesday nights, and earning the nickname of Mr. Television.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwaDL_pm7GIDhS8LwS40t629luoe7lJQByilN79JY4i1W7gBMmHJoECrNiFSYXXMPBguY6-qocAPkMDxN_RLYW0lkMxeKDbTj0yB4gGlIzHzb6T6zrQ9EqTk-CwK7iftcJj5EQlgKT_zSHJTGkXxSj6wXCa0K10rJsBLCObQV2v9ZXZ2wzqg/s790/jackie%20g.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="790" data-original-width="600" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwaDL_pm7GIDhS8LwS40t629luoe7lJQByilN79JY4i1W7gBMmHJoECrNiFSYXXMPBguY6-qocAPkMDxN_RLYW0lkMxeKDbTj0yB4gGlIzHzb6T6zrQ9EqTk-CwK7iftcJj5EQlgKT_zSHJTGkXxSj6wXCa0K10rJsBLCObQV2v9ZXZ2wzqg/w152-h200/jackie%20g.jpg" width="152" /></a></div> As a teenager, Jackie Gleason was a carnival barker and half
of double act for vaudeville theatres.
In his 20s he played nightclubs as a comedian and acted in supporting
roles in Hollywood movies. Like Berle,
he was hired as one of several rotating hosts for a 1950 variety show,
Cavalcade of Stars on the Dumont network, but soon transformed it into the
Jackie Gleason Show. After transferring
to CBS, his show became a hit of the mid-1950s.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Such pedigrees were also common for acts on these
shows. Some had even deeper roots.
Popular 1950s guest star Buster Keaton was one of the original silent comedy
geniuses (in his last 1930s films he partnered with Jimmy Durante). But his performing experience went back
through vaudeville to one of the 19<sup>th</sup> century American theatrical
forms, the medicine show-- entertainment off the back of a wagon to gather a
crowd for the patent medicine pitch.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5jt0ruxpKdlOTM71l4pSaFFv7ClhzdDxHeNUXfG0RzGj2kHXekV-9qRB94Go1DxViYJ4SqQZ3Qp4rbfcfhuh39_0xcVvOCHS0sGOauNPyO52PiFOnVXqE_F5zRkVP-9KkhguwSclyqHAow9ITzhPAso7jJuv5iCt46YD1HVgm1fTQgGufCA/s751/1962.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="514" data-original-width="751" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5jt0ruxpKdlOTM71l4pSaFFv7ClhzdDxHeNUXfG0RzGj2kHXekV-9qRB94Go1DxViYJ4SqQZ3Qp4rbfcfhuh39_0xcVvOCHS0sGOauNPyO52PiFOnVXqE_F5zRkVP-9KkhguwSclyqHAow9ITzhPAso7jJuv5iCt46YD1HVgm1fTQgGufCA/s320/1962.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> I emphasize this genealogy of the first TV variety shows and
their hosts not mainly to make an historical point, but to suggest an element
that made experiencing these shows as a viewer unique. When as a child I laughed at Milton Berle
yelling “Makeup!” and getting hit in the face with a giant powder puff, it was
new to me, but not to comedy performance. I didn’t notice anything particular
about a song and dance number performed by guests Bob Hope and Jimmy Cagney.
When I saw a typical finale to a Jimmy Durante show—a musical number in which
he and his old partner Eddie Jackson strutted around in top hats, tapping canes
on the floor, I vaguely knew I was seeing something “old-fashioned.” It turns out that in all cases what I was
seeing was vaudeville bits done by former vaudevillians. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> What I didn’t realize or appreciate until much later that in
watching these variety shows, I was seeing layers of entertainment that went
back beyond the 20<sup>th</sup> century.
Just as the early morning cartoons I watched provided an accidental
history of animation, these variety shows were a living history, an experience
largely inaccessible today. Perhaps
only my generation of children had it, because we were young when television
was young. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx8fv90ejRiRDlAkPtoVavmFD-ULcVbRdmQt37zKLN_ayCQ1BflYSXNd7BaQuv221Gxwvz0mNHjOSA9F0B2d1Fh3asvR0U9WJzTPhP0rsFPnCWvZQ6kog7ubaoo5WkRYdyWPnZzcuH5Ns4uKt4WJJwkjhDhT7XX-iW-m4KuuhvQH0nxh9p5w/s520/dinah.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="520" height="385" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx8fv90ejRiRDlAkPtoVavmFD-ULcVbRdmQt37zKLN_ayCQ1BflYSXNd7BaQuv221Gxwvz0mNHjOSA9F0B2d1Fh3asvR0U9WJzTPhP0rsFPnCWvZQ6kog7ubaoo5WkRYdyWPnZzcuH5Ns4uKt4WJJwkjhDhT7XX-iW-m4KuuhvQH0nxh9p5w/w400-h385/dinah.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>And I did watch them all—the variety shows. There were basically two kinds of hosts:
singers or comedians. Most variety
shows headlining singers were short-lived (though some, like the Nat King Cole
Show were noble tries—in 1957 this half hour was the first TV variety show with
a black host.) The major exceptions were the perennial Perry Como (1949 to
1966, with his annual Christmas shows that had begun in 1948 continuing through
1994) and Dinah Shore (1951 to 1963.) As a child I waited to hear Dinah Shore
sing her “See the USA in your Chevrolet” song, and see her blow an exaggerated
goodnight kiss. Even in the 60s, Perry
Como was a favorite of my grandmother, so we all watched it at her house.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> There were variations on the form, such as “talent shows”
from Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts to Ted Mack’s Original Amateur Hour (and
local variations, like the Wilkins Amateur Hour in Pittsburgh, sponsored by
Wilkins Jewelers: simulcast from the radio show, it was Pittsburgh’s first live
television show.) </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> There were a few attempts at shows hosted by bandleaders
(Bob Crosby, Freddy Martin, Russ Morgan, Guy Lombardo), but the only one that
stuck was Lawrence Welk, who went on through rock and roll and the 60s without
changing much. (Guy Lombardo did become
part of TV history with his New Year’s Eve shows; for a generation he was an
inevitable part of welcoming in the New Year.) Shows hosted by musicians in particular, but variety shows in general gave my generation knowledge of songs from the entire first half of the 20th century and a little from earlier--many of which are now thought of as the American Songbook. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The shows hosted by comics were the most enduring. The Colgate Comedy Hour may have been the first
evening TV show I knew by name, and I waited earnestly for my favorite hosts:
Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Abbott and Costello, and Jimmy Durante. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj59hc0BbJ4wP_Rm6Q3LbOwRBM0K_b3eowVLBkh1Vw6UvjmUM4tuKqv3X0WPlaI1mBdH9wAVKGyMyObYsEDl53BTmigdYrZ5twX0k5oR2XXNPxFAVBx-z2NBl-oqZJAppr4KUilK9gWOLTYo5AIl5Jus3iUrmOmDQ-yrkUfMBMn5Dd3_lPi0w/s568/DgYtGD-WkAEY2d3.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="479" data-original-width="568" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj59hc0BbJ4wP_Rm6Q3LbOwRBM0K_b3eowVLBkh1Vw6UvjmUM4tuKqv3X0WPlaI1mBdH9wAVKGyMyObYsEDl53BTmigdYrZ5twX0k5oR2XXNPxFAVBx-z2NBl-oqZJAppr4KUilK9gWOLTYo5AIl5Jus3iUrmOmDQ-yrkUfMBMn5Dd3_lPi0w/s320/DgYtGD-WkAEY2d3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>In this show or a later one, I was especially entranced by
Durante’s closing song, always the same signature song, called
simply “Goodnight,” to more or less the tune of “The Shiek of Araby.” As the ditty ends he gets up from the piano,
takes a trenchcoat from the rack and puts it on, pauses at a door to say his
indelible final line: “Goodnight Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.” Then he walks through the door into
darkness, guided by circular pools of light on the floor.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]-->It was a magical, mysterious moment. I wondered where he was going, where those lights would take him. Every time he appeared I waited to maybe find out who Mrs.
Calabash was. No one ever did find out for sure. The two leading theories are that it was a
pet name for his first (deceased) wife, or that it was a generic name for (in
his daughter’s words) “all the lonely old ladies watching the show.” </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC4vy_QRSQRBUixG-ucsITXaQabiBtctn2_jr36XmjM4pw5svr-5y4A80VSf7n5ZDrd_bt9cpGmEKo4n9OPbE2uQwDrp_Cd1hAH7z1UFegZ8Ey5HT2_RbccMB462EvglE9dmmSRmXceGdv_AlengbhHHwThilTNEW1S0ONs1DRWKkUplNsoA/s446/milton-berle2.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="446" data-original-width="242" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC4vy_QRSQRBUixG-ucsITXaQabiBtctn2_jr36XmjM4pw5svr-5y4A80VSf7n5ZDrd_bt9cpGmEKo4n9OPbE2uQwDrp_Cd1hAH7z1UFegZ8Ey5HT2_RbccMB462EvglE9dmmSRmXceGdv_AlengbhHHwThilTNEW1S0ONs1DRWKkUplNsoA/w174-h320/milton-berle2.jpg" width="174" /></a></div>The first comic to establish the variety show as a network
staple was Milton Berle, beginning in 1948. His Texaco Star Theatre set the
vaudeville show example, with comedy, musical guests and dancers, as well as
acrobats, ventriloquists (very big on early TV, with its close-up cameras)
jugglers and so on. But Berle’s wild
costumes, slapstick comedy and classic vaudeville/burlesque comedy skits were
the main attraction. He was a national
sensation, and was said to have sold more TV sets than any advertiser. He reigned for the first eight years of
network TV.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi22nQ16kvDEUU9ljOCNZLGEDunKReD5cX95AVddAlUe-vMa-WTkjIkU_viaH8nz82ouetdhP4zVeecGLgGTlo_f7d_trX4mDN_tnV0GMgtJdG7ffGfOpk22lGu8TgXIQVNQtjxHDfd5nGF3BRB6YczwMGisdyeMcoFXRQpil_hJCIor8uGzA/s473/bishop%20sheen.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="473" data-original-width="472" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi22nQ16kvDEUU9ljOCNZLGEDunKReD5cX95AVddAlUe-vMa-WTkjIkU_viaH8nz82ouetdhP4zVeecGLgGTlo_f7d_trX4mDN_tnV0GMgtJdG7ffGfOpk22lGu8TgXIQVNQtjxHDfd5nGF3BRB6YczwMGisdyeMcoFXRQpil_hJCIor8uGzA/s320/bishop%20sheen.jpg" width="319" /></a></div> I watched Milton Berle on Tuesday nights, even at the risk
of damnation for not choosing Bishop Sheen’s show on another station. Officially titled “Life is Worth Living,” it first ran on the fading Dumont network on Tuesdays, and then on another night on the fledgling ABC. It remains an anomaly in
network TV—a Catholic priest standing in front of a blackboard in full regalia,
delivering homilies for a half hour from a religious point of view. It was in that sense the anti-variety show. I did watch it sometimes, perhaps catching
the second half of Berle, or in later years when it was on other nights. As a child, I was mystified by how Bishop
Sheen’s blackboard was magically erased during his talk. (He referred to the “angels” that wiped
it.) It says something about the
innocence of the early 1950s audience that adults were similarly mystified by
this simple camera move.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> I absorbed a great deal of vaudeville comedy style from
Milton Berle, in particular the many variations on the double take. (Also of
course the spit take.) He may have also
been the first adult I saw who seemed to be having fun. Berle’s most direct TV heir was probably Red
Skelton—I watched his show but wasn’t crazy about it. Skelton had perhaps the deepest resume of the major comics—he had
played medicine shows, burlesque, vaudeville (at times doing pantomime) and
nightclubs before radio and the movies. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhppos9QO-gLlR7maHk0mB11C3CRn-OVujOh-0KacD1kf4b76ZB93sWI-VQDdpMQxneY_wsKY-EUqsoodGX6cUyt1uUCRvMT84Z3TKB2vD2VFWb6mUmR5QI3KycjbvljxCFUw5boqfh2DEZA1i56OJpCWam3-6s5dHRs0sba-V8xdB-U58KaQ/s674/Honeymooners_Jackie_Gleason_1963.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="674" data-original-width="544" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhppos9QO-gLlR7maHk0mB11C3CRn-OVujOh-0KacD1kf4b76ZB93sWI-VQDdpMQxneY_wsKY-EUqsoodGX6cUyt1uUCRvMT84Z3TKB2vD2VFWb6mUmR5QI3KycjbvljxCFUw5boqfh2DEZA1i56OJpCWam3-6s5dHRs0sba-V8xdB-U58KaQ/w161-h200/Honeymooners_Jackie_Gleason_1963.jpg" width="161" /></a></div>Jackie Gleason’s show also followed but also developed the
vaudeville variety format. The June Taylor Dancers were a regular feature,
often shot from above in Busby Berkeley style.
He participated in big production numbers with his nimble big man
dancing (and it was at the end of one of these that he fell and broke his leg,
necessitating his absence for a number of shows.) But his character driven skits with a series of repeated characters
evolved beyond vaudeville set pieces into what became situation comedy,
especially with the famous Honeymooners segment, that also became a stand-alone
series for a season. He’s best
remembered now for his catch-phrases (“And away we go!” etc.) and his Ralph
Cramden character in The Honeymooners. <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi0eLjyyw4GZKfmeXvNEb5UacFHss7K8VMXwDzgKxykV9oNoOEixnFI2LRqOuIq8uWpd5s2vrNMjwXYKLnx_bJrG5aYhfg-04vdhYIrYNHaU_QYqQl6dVqQz1qElklkzMtutOv62-MYyjdVmToKkVdsdFGnY33F1plgF9m3oDA2HrTQpgj9Q/s800/800px-Coca_caesar_your_show_of_shows_1952.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="638" data-original-width="800" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi0eLjyyw4GZKfmeXvNEb5UacFHss7K8VMXwDzgKxykV9oNoOEixnFI2LRqOuIq8uWpd5s2vrNMjwXYKLnx_bJrG5aYhfg-04vdhYIrYNHaU_QYqQl6dVqQz1qElklkzMtutOv62-MYyjdVmToKkVdsdFGnY33F1plgF9m3oDA2HrTQpgj9Q/s320/800px-Coca_caesar_your_show_of_shows_1952.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> Sid Caesar’s <i>Your Show of Shows</i> and subsequent
incarnations also developed beyond the simple variety format (though it
presented many singers, dancers and other acts) to become a kind of rep company
comedy hour. It remains unique in the
sophisticated subjects of its humor, such as foreign films that were generally
available only in New York and a few other big cities. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Some of its skits are still seen on film and are still
hilarious. The show is also remembered
for the lineup of its writing staff, which included Mel Brooks, Neil Simon,
Woody Allen, Carl Reiner, Lucille Kallen and eventually Larry Gelbart. The
physical and verbal comedy genius who made it all work was Sid Caesar, who
invented his “double-talk” in foreign languages while waiting tables as a boy
in his parents’ luncheonette, and watched variety performers as a saxophonist
for a Borscht Belt orchestra before creating and performing in musical comedy
revues in the Coast Guard during World War II. His TV partner Imogene Coca was
also a physically gifted comedienne. (Nanette Fabray proved herself adept at
comedy as well in a later incarnation of the show.) Carl Reiner was the perfect straight man.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR82hxP0AbCTGkFmiEYDLQckZcwkmpQnjsdMbnl9jeKevGO76WNG9BuQxL-X2vtz7sqOwK9OGFNiCUaXEV8uC70nI84EuIUvTRoqrgm4KSM9ooSIIHEipF_LKUH_V3PF0Zobxo4pi8f4RJtOsDjo7s-RohQbaLBZUEwG2lUbBXkxGPCztg4w/s482/Screen-shot-2016-11-13-at-5.28.15-PM.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="367" data-original-width="482" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR82hxP0AbCTGkFmiEYDLQckZcwkmpQnjsdMbnl9jeKevGO76WNG9BuQxL-X2vtz7sqOwK9OGFNiCUaXEV8uC70nI84EuIUvTRoqrgm4KSM9ooSIIHEipF_LKUH_V3PF0Zobxo4pi8f4RJtOsDjo7s-RohQbaLBZUEwG2lUbBXkxGPCztg4w/s320/Screen-shot-2016-11-13-at-5.28.15-PM.png" width="320" /></a></div> Meanwhile a new generation of entertainer was also taking
the national TV stage. Ernie Kovacs was
an actor and a radio DJ who gradually expanded into local and then national
television. He entered the new field of
late night with a show on the Dumont network in 1954. (He would later be Steve
Allen’s principal fill-in host on The Tonight Show.) He had a network show from 1952 through 1956, during which he
experimented with camera tricks, exploring the visual possibilities of
television more than other variety show comics. By the time of his series in
1962 he was able to use videotape to further refine this approach. Meanwhile he
created memorable characters and bits, and his reputation grew with the years. <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQSDEQtP2uxrlH3Zxk9-NPBvXymaFsjSN20d_CNaxvUeVAcZZ0dyak-GbWEvlFfTAbCf65IJR9EjQy1rx-PyDDY5wkLAH6Wr3mEBB_F-OHJZBnsL2gnR1gIy2jclboS8NVNBD6rnm_PuvVlkD8X6CVMQHXH0jHyunKBTAfjfl_05OZGEdd4g/s970/Garry_Moore_Carol_Burnett_Durward_Kirby_Garry_Moore_Show_1961.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="704" data-original-width="970" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQSDEQtP2uxrlH3Zxk9-NPBvXymaFsjSN20d_CNaxvUeVAcZZ0dyak-GbWEvlFfTAbCf65IJR9EjQy1rx-PyDDY5wkLAH6Wr3mEBB_F-OHJZBnsL2gnR1gIy2jclboS8NVNBD6rnm_PuvVlkD8X6CVMQHXH0jHyunKBTAfjfl_05OZGEdd4g/s320/Garry_Moore_Carol_Burnett_Durward_Kirby_Garry_Moore_Show_1961.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Moore, Burnett and Kirby</td></tr></tbody></table>Garry Moore is in some ways the forgotten man of 1950s
variety shows. He started as an announcer
and emcee on radio, then after his brief partnership with Jimmy Durante on radio, he had a number of game show and talk show gigs on TV before settling into network
afternoon slot with the Garry Moore Show. Later he hosted a successful evening
variety show. Though he was more of an
emcee than comic, he also performed in skits and did characters and
impressions. His casual approach
mirrored Dave Garroway, the first host of Today (whose signature—upheld hand,
palm out and one word: “Peace”-- was given homage by Keith Olbermann in his
last TV commentary show) and prefigured another forgotten variety show host of
the 50s, George Gobel. Featured on
Moore’s shows were his equally laid back partner, Derwood Kirby, and the young
woman who would go on to establish her own highly successful variety show in
later decades, Carol Burnett. I
remember his “That Wonderful Year” segments of nostalia on his variety show,
and especially the way he signed off his afternoon show: <i>“Be good to each
other, will you? And goodbye out
there!”</i> <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHwhneWm9pdxy9zULh1V4YstQRw10bTbDVyEPGKQviQh2diZMY6HvGx3i4KGXAXNsVh2NxluQ8jX5zlPTvwHnAVNknMFNDOONtFgztw72747O_KVsQ1JXm6LY9C5mrrXX4bBPO1CeLO-XMtvGqB8ZtadCgc83lFyVgWDzhWMiWyXEioX6-cw/s414/allen-reading-newspaper.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="283" data-original-width="414" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHwhneWm9pdxy9zULh1V4YstQRw10bTbDVyEPGKQviQh2diZMY6HvGx3i4KGXAXNsVh2NxluQ8jX5zlPTvwHnAVNknMFNDOONtFgztw72747O_KVsQ1JXm6LY9C5mrrXX4bBPO1CeLO-XMtvGqB8ZtadCgc83lFyVgWDzhWMiWyXEioX6-cw/s320/allen-reading-newspaper.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Steve Allen also started professionally as a radio DJ who
soon began playing fewer records and doing more comedy. He brought his talents for comic invention,
innovation and quick wit to television in 1950, eventually creating a late
night show in New York which went national in 1954 as the Tonight Show, the
first network late night show. He was performing for two hours a night live, 90
minutes of which were on the network. Most of today’s conventions of late night
were his inventions.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Two years later, he added the hosting of a Sunday night
variety show on NBC. Though it had the
usual novelty acts, Allen showcased music, especially jazz, and often played
piano with his musical guests. He was decidedly offbeat for network TV,
interviewing writer Jack Kerouac and then playing a jazzy background to Kerouac
reading from his writing. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMDMe6IAzxD7-syZIjKdV0hwB-l7oZul9WH9PQM7YgXS7yKkXTOwt-HBdtOf6uK6B4PMdd1gS-8P4F4ngcVlZ7bX17OxF3GUzQcoSC3CWly0LYyUll6LYk2D7zHyq9YGEoW5JP6-Wg0wdZU7evSBR4QtlqP0hhtYL2Yxdf6f-Fof-D2WmWkg/s640/nye%20steve%20a.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMDMe6IAzxD7-syZIjKdV0hwB-l7oZul9WH9PQM7YgXS7yKkXTOwt-HBdtOf6uK6B4PMdd1gS-8P4F4ngcVlZ7bX17OxF3GUzQcoSC3CWly0LYyUll6LYk2D7zHyq9YGEoW5JP6-Wg0wdZU7evSBR4QtlqP0hhtYL2Yxdf6f-Fof-D2WmWkg/w200-h150/nye%20steve%20a.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Louis Nye</td></tr></tbody></table>Allen’s Sunday show is probably best remembered for his
company of comic players that performed sketches with him, particularly the Man
in the Street interviews. There were standard bits: Tom Postum’s big smile
until asked his name, which he could never remember; Don Knotts shaking with
nervousness, and Louis Nye’s hipster, who greeted him with what became a
national catchphrase: “Hi, ho, Steverino!” <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHR3EsX2Xn0KKZyDfiOoq2QVAWW5jGn1nXXdiKCTXlILg2dcJgo8LsUSiQPDZvDMoO0jZprRpmG6CFDCn42JlcY-1InoB-pLaJLUofvOBxHZ6zcSTz4JKljv0QMFexc_kA3GctR7C5VbsOjldvyHZ670j1i7tPGEcF8ZPwmYGaLyxe0ZnpQg/s233/ed%20s01.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="216" data-original-width="233" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHR3EsX2Xn0KKZyDfiOoq2QVAWW5jGn1nXXdiKCTXlILg2dcJgo8LsUSiQPDZvDMoO0jZprRpmG6CFDCn42JlcY-1InoB-pLaJLUofvOBxHZ6zcSTz4JKljv0QMFexc_kA3GctR7C5VbsOjldvyHZ670j1i7tPGEcF8ZPwmYGaLyxe0ZnpQg/s1600/ed%20s01.jpg" width="233" /></a></div>The Steve Allen Show was opposite the Sunday night ratings leader, and among
the most popular shows in television.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Formally called “The Toast of the Town,” it was a major anomaly: a
network variety show hosted by neither singer nor comedian nor star of any
kind, but a barely articulate newspaper columnist, Ed Sullivan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">At first people didn’t know what to make of it, and it was
regularly trounced by the Colgate Comedy Hour. But by the mid-50s it was
immensely popular, surviving the head-to-head with Steve Allen’s Sunday night
show, and going on to become a television institution. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYmSK7s0I-DsL6ZtIZk4vOhgxCzQ4UHBThxgdH7bEB6AU-skQesGZ3isfuDJebu_FxGhoHKrU23LNR6V1XfT1UVBSkOIa5qVmk3PVR1EYzxkbu3yzL1WQ8nKR96PEFce91fVdq0Hf-7iyOUJj2yNUHlIkw48K7UDKUPvhhV82ahu5URCZbCw/s612/sul%20show%201953%20roxyettes.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="595" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYmSK7s0I-DsL6ZtIZk4vOhgxCzQ4UHBThxgdH7bEB6AU-skQesGZ3isfuDJebu_FxGhoHKrU23LNR6V1XfT1UVBSkOIa5qVmk3PVR1EYzxkbu3yzL1WQ8nKR96PEFce91fVdq0Hf-7iyOUJj2yNUHlIkw48K7UDKUPvhhV82ahu5URCZbCw/s320/sul%20show%201953%20roxyettes.jpg" width="311" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Roxyettes on Sullivan 1953</td></tr></tbody></table>Though Ed Sullivan was known for his New York newspaper
column on entertainment, he began as an emcee for vaudeville shows in the 1920s
and 1930s. He brought the vaudeville
variety approach to radio and then to early television beginning in 1948. Sullivan had no particular performing
talent, and barely engaged in any conversation with guests. His role was simply to introduce them and
later endorse them. Perhaps for this
reason, the Ed Sullivan Show became the purest of all variety shows, and the
one that was most like a very high class vaudeville hour.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> For there was lots of variety on this variety show:
tumblers, high-wire acts, jugglers (and jugglers on high wires), magicians,
clowns and acrobats, and even animal acts, all reminiscent of the circus, if
not actually appearing directly from one.
There were singers of all styles with the latest hit record or from the
newest or most popular Broadway show, and occasionally from the opera. No musical
style was out of bounds, including classical, country and western, R& B and
blues.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim7aC62oublqif5jclQCtR2jxSIhdNxn-DF4Y0q5WZdtpg4kfSpX3D_qxB-hBAUN2UyXq57CFBRiQxE-TG02THjd2HZCbmrLrM16MnalVcqYvt8Vq8NXmUEC9fgWsgFcNZ-aRwgz7mT-a1jY8aBGf6HCYXlhxA8E1mLgpSEYZdRx47V7rn0g/s300/ed%20s02.jpg" style="clear: right; display: inline; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="249" data-original-width="300" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim7aC62oublqif5jclQCtR2jxSIhdNxn-DF4Y0q5WZdtpg4kfSpX3D_qxB-hBAUN2UyXq57CFBRiQxE-TG02THjd2HZCbmrLrM16MnalVcqYvt8Vq8NXmUEC9fgWsgFcNZ-aRwgz7mT-a1jY8aBGf6HCYXlhxA8E1mLgpSEYZdRx47V7rn0g/w200-h166/ed%20s02.jpg" width="200" /></a> Dancers in all
combinations and styles, including ballet, and orchestras playing popular and
classical music. There were foreign
stars and ethnic acts (national dances and songs) and novelty acts. There were puppets, like the Italian puppet
Topo Gigio, and ventriloquists. There
were impressionists and comics of all kinds, including duos (Wayne and Schuster
most frequently.) For singers and comics in particular, appearing on Ed
Sullivan became the equivalent of playing the Palace in a previous generation:
the top. (This was parodied in the musical “Bye, Bye, Birdie” with a hymn-like
song extolling Ed Sullivan.) </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN7tMc-xMBe8A_wyOUIWIxFwgVc37rRo-2pQGLOdL34LVc3rjL_7qYg0nGPIhJ572G5zSpCZJgNmN9OS-0cTe0xNH_xLRLQhQvZrySZcunSZUWMPERBzvhxjifsbNPHxhUBt1kGbS9lS3nOo3cXNsKrYGm6dMCzzY8mf1kOBaL5yrUFUwihg/s490/ed%20s03.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="368" data-original-width="490" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN7tMc-xMBe8A_wyOUIWIxFwgVc37rRo-2pQGLOdL34LVc3rjL_7qYg0nGPIhJ572G5zSpCZJgNmN9OS-0cTe0xNH_xLRLQhQvZrySZcunSZUWMPERBzvhxjifsbNPHxhUBt1kGbS9lS3nOo3cXNsKrYGm6dMCzzY8mf1kOBaL5yrUFUwihg/s320/ed%20s03.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Though there were headliners and featured spots, the
Sullivan show could be a dizzying experience. Senor Wences (and his puppet
hand) could be followed by Bill Haley and the Comets, followed by a half dozen
sequined performers spinning dinner plates in the air, followed by operatic
star Beverly Sills.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The variety extended to the guests of every ethnicity and
race. Though it didn’t seem unusual to
me at the time, Sullivan’s show is credited with showcasing a large number and
variety of Black performers. (The
Supremes alone appeared 17 times.) “As
a Catholic, it was inevitable that I would despise intolerance,” he told a
reporter, “because Catholics suffered more than their share of it.” This rings true as a 1950s position. I suspect it’s not so true today. And it is of course within the context of a century of entertainment segregation, and worse. Though Sullivan was perhaps more tainted by the racism of his time that he knew, it is also true that he supported Black entertainers, and in 1949 he organized the largest funeral in New York City history, for Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. Prominent celebrity attendees included Milton Berle and Jimmy Durante.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> I much preferred the Steve Allen Show for as long as it
lasted, and I found it difficult to watch the Sullivan show straight
through. But come Sunday night, the
television was on, and so was Ed, and there was usually something worth
watching. (Especially when it was either that or homework, or bed.)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4BrH751acvtkdiX9xydcSj3LrFvDyTe3gqyLnVPFBXveVbPsWxQRJdjdIFRXcXnp40RuNh6-qIPGG-QQSS2wr8dM-4LfOlV4Y-ExxhuHmxcqyvcuV9AD9yTvEYshaSwTcWEnxU19PWqwazl48yKS8R-aiFfvyI1HLWlUICR9d5nunBMwUXg/s612/sul%20showb.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="454" data-original-width="612" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4BrH751acvtkdiX9xydcSj3LrFvDyTe3gqyLnVPFBXveVbPsWxQRJdjdIFRXcXnp40RuNh6-qIPGG-QQSS2wr8dM-4LfOlV4Y-ExxhuHmxcqyvcuV9AD9yTvEYshaSwTcWEnxU19PWqwazl48yKS8R-aiFfvyI1HLWlUICR9d5nunBMwUXg/w400-h296/sul%20showb.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> The Ed Sullivan Show
became the longest running variety show in TV history, lasting from 1948 to
1971. When it was cancelled, Sullivan was quoted as saying that vaudeville had died a second death.<div><br /></div><div> But the variety show itself had begun to wane by then, until it
disappeared in subsequent decades. The closest equivalents today range from
Saturday Night Live and late night shows to the talent competitions in singing
and dancing.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Even in the mid-50s, the technology to make television shows
was improving, as was the quality of television sets to receive them. Program
budgets were also increasing, so a range of programs became possible beyond
pointing cameras at live performances on a stage.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> At the same time, audiences were changing, or at least their
circumstances, economic and otherwise.
According to scholars, it was no coincidence that the rise of vaudeville
coincided with the flood of immigrants, particularly into New York and other
cities. The mill workers and service workers of the immigrant families in the
city were vaudeville’s principal audience, and it is from immigrant families
that most vaudeville performers came.
To a large degree the same was true of early television, particularly
the variety shows. But television was
to reflect the changes in its audience as the 1950s went on, particularly in
the form that in part also emerged from vaudeville roots: the situation
comedy. Next time. </p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-4281246970246901052022-09-20T02:26:00.005-07:002022-10-24T00:10:29.645-07:00Beatles: Let It Back<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR0iTVv-GiRoah4UTacQN1OYVew6b4102uipPsirJAzHixU3ibYEgLvqXIiOY_vOh764IC4DGeeXljtduXAabBkigzlYLQ_bUtzwfgvYPeVaqK6UzM9_c3_BmmQfoNQrT5k6R5_XNHghus1q9vJNHzJLbZOjypiWVCTFOon1GEPZUinPt4O_Q/s1200/getback3.0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR0iTVv-GiRoah4UTacQN1OYVew6b4102uipPsirJAzHixU3ibYEgLvqXIiOY_vOh764IC4DGeeXljtduXAabBkigzlYLQ_bUtzwfgvYPeVaqK6UzM9_c3_BmmQfoNQrT5k6R5_XNHghus1q9vJNHzJLbZOjypiWVCTFOon1GEPZUinPt4O_Q/w400-h266/getback3.0.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>During recording for the Abbey Road album (which commenced almost immediately after the "Get Back" sessions), George Martin couldn't make it to the studio one Saturday. The Beatles were working on the songs "Oh, Darling" and "Octopus' Garden" (both of which were first heard during those "Get Back" sessions.) Martin got engineer Jeff Jeratt to substitute. He'd never worked with the Beatles before. <div><br /></div><div> As Jeratt recalled for Mark Lewisohn in his <i>The Beatles Recording Sessions 1962-1970</i>, Martin warned him, "There will be one Beatle there, fine. Two Beatles, great. Three Beatles, fantastic. But the minute the four of them are there, that is when the inexplicable, charismatic thing happens, the special magic that no one has been able to explain. It will be very friendly between you and them but you'll be aware of this inexplicable presence."<div><br /></div><div>Jaratt added: "Sure enough, that's exactly the way it happened. I've never felt it in any other circumstances, it was the special chemistry of the four of them which nobody since has ever had."</div><div><br /></div><div>Peter Jackson's long video chronicle of the <i>Get Back</i> sessions in 1969, streaming on Disney Plus and now on DVD and Blu-Ray, is not only a saturation in Beatles history and process, but a unique view of a rare time, when all four Beatles were in the studio together every day for a month, something that likely hadn't happened since their early albums, if it had ever happened before at all. The result is an engrossing, mystifying and sometimes exhilarating eight hours, which for me verges on the addictive.</div><div><p></p><p>After completing what's known as the White Album in October 1968 (official title: <i>The Beatles</i>), the Beatles decided to have themselves filmed in the recording studio to be made into a TV special. At first they were going to do White Album songs, but then decided it would be more interesting to show them creating new songs, rehearsing them, and then performing them in a live show...somewhere. The day after New Years in 1969, they began.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdtwzlmYIfi18KA5YtU5aYCQJ17HMcEbBeIoCUxQJnAe_93ikT-5l0pbO66G7hmdzydT_-0b1K9HfJSI7tFzrtU9jVm5XcMYkoJ_UIipc4aEwvW944dmd5DUtkI2xLcNC_Qu7RefjWO-QaFkcR7ydYEoOLv8yqXrzsGnam7B_h4gU6RTdbRg/s269/download.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="269" data-original-width="187" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdtwzlmYIfi18KA5YtU5aYCQJ17HMcEbBeIoCUxQJnAe_93ikT-5l0pbO66G7hmdzydT_-0b1K9HfJSI7tFzrtU9jVm5XcMYkoJ_UIipc4aEwvW944dmd5DUtkI2xLcNC_Qu7RefjWO-QaFkcR7ydYEoOLv8yqXrzsGnam7B_h4gU6RTdbRg/s1600/download.jpg" width="187" /></a></div>Until now, all that officially resulted from these sessions were the feature film <i>Let It Be</i> and the album of that title, both released in 1970. By the time they came out, the Beatles as a band effectively no longer existed. The movie in particular became known as the story of them breaking up. <p></p><p>About a half century later, the Beatles' still-existing company called Apple, still had the original 16 mm footage of all the hours filmed that month, plus audio tapes that ran even when the cameras didn't. Peter Jackson, director of the Lord of the Rings films, jumped at the chance to try to construct a new something or other out of that footage. When he started watching it (he would say repeatedly to interviewers), he was astonished: the Beatles didn't look like a dour group who hated each other. They were often affectionate, and often having fun. The sessions had tensions but also a lot of joy. Sometimes in subtle ways, they showed the earned closeness of a band of self-selected brothers, who had made magic together for nearly a decade, and still could. Some four years later Jackson delivered<i> Get Back</i>, an eight hour selection for Disney to run in three segments, and eventually, for Apple to issue as three DVDs.</p><p>Apart from doing it at all, Peter Jackson earns high praise for doing two basic things. First, he used today's technology to "restore" the visuals and the sound. I'm guessing that in fact the visuals look even better than the original 16 mm film, although 16 can look pretty damn good. The sound of the music probably needed less work, but the real contribution was to clean up the sound so that the conversations etc. can be heard. </p><p>Second, Jackson structured the film chronologically, which in itself changes the impressions often created by the <i>Let It Be</i> movie, which was directed by the guy who filmed all those hours, Michael Lindsay-Hogg. <i>Let It Be</i> has the barest sense of chronology. It's basically a collection of scenes. It also looks terrible. Even when it first came out, blown up to 35 mm, it was grainy and dark. Surviving versions are often further edited and panned-and-scanned. The one I have on VHS looks like a series of extreme close-ups shot during a blackout. My fading memory of seeing it a couple of times in theatres, however, supports the idea that close-ups or one and two shots predominated. Jackson's film has a larger sense of space. We get the full studio and the full band. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKdICNRb7pC1e1Kr_hcjr-xwQCGZs4g35b-a4UwSl32ejP4_jvhnleElCVXllYYaLzXYd_SBrGtJ4YS4yYFG4yx11E1DgoaGXypn5lEU65UnKsFfeoiPlTTl3BQttRCcUQLp1CI7SmfhGjyXQmxfzMZ8tF5q6cEj_FsvCHnuPf-DHPyb25CA/s2560/getback01.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="2560" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKdICNRb7pC1e1Kr_hcjr-xwQCGZs4g35b-a4UwSl32ejP4_jvhnleElCVXllYYaLzXYd_SBrGtJ4YS4yYFG4yx11E1DgoaGXypn5lEU65UnKsFfeoiPlTTl3BQttRCcUQLp1CI7SmfhGjyXQmxfzMZ8tF5q6cEj_FsvCHnuPf-DHPyb25CA/w400-h225/getback01.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>But even as a chronology of that month and of these sessions, Jackson's film isn't complete. Important events outside the studio aren't mentioned, both in terms of background (the Beatles finances were a mess, and Apple was going broke) and specific events. For example, early in the month, George Harrison suddenly gets up and leaves, quitting the group. It's a big dramatic moment, and Jackson's film does a great job of showing the other Beatles' responses. Then a few days later, Harrison comes back, inexplicably cheerful. Jackson's film doesn't even try to suggest why Harrison left, except to show a painful conversation with McCartney that the <i>Let It Be</i> film also shows part of. (Some Beatles scholars however suggests George and John Lennon had an off-camera tiff earlier that day, which precipitated George leaving.) But what Jackson's film doesn't mention is that the day before George quit, his wife Patti left him. And then she returned at about the time he rejoined the group. He seemed to remain in a very good mood from then on, very committed to the band.<p></p><p>Apart from leaving out external events (including alleged drug use), Jackson leaves out parts of some conversations, skipping sentences and even moving the order of statements within the same conversation. I know this because Beatles scholars on YouTube play the original audio tapes, which became available long before Jackson's <i>Get Back</i> was released. So while this is a huge improvement in understanding what actually happened in these January 1969 sessions, Jackson's film isn't quite as complete or straightforward as it might seem.</p><p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2_uGdE-nK616P-5UEbyq3ZVtK86onbnFRN9xIrpdKXHgEyDhY4_3EsmDU8vaR0GhMsQ5BM_TD8d8VSY6Lie-jbcl2W1MwBQ_8MyDZIgc8BIe5uOt1TVIbKxzQrwAVpUg2JRN1_aAeY155_4CcOc7LaaUAvl_Z24O_tcHHm0K2eybcdh-47A/s1024/Capture-10-e1637942104867-1024x512.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="1024" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2_uGdE-nK616P-5UEbyq3ZVtK86onbnFRN9xIrpdKXHgEyDhY4_3EsmDU8vaR0GhMsQ5BM_TD8d8VSY6Lie-jbcl2W1MwBQ_8MyDZIgc8BIe5uOt1TVIbKxzQrwAVpUg2JRN1_aAeY155_4CcOc7LaaUAvl_Z24O_tcHHm0K2eybcdh-47A/s320/Capture-10-e1637942104867-1024x512.png" width="320" /></a></i></div><i>Get Back</i> tells a story that seems to be basically accurate. The initial idea was to make use of the otherwise empty building of the British film company, Twickenham Studio, because Apple had leased it for the month in preparation for the making of <i>The Magic Christian</i> feature film, that was scheduled to begin shooting there in February. That movie starred Peter Sellars and Ringo Starr, so that was another reasons the Beatles had to finish this musical adventure in January--Ringo would be unavailable.<p></p><p>But the Beatles were miserable at Twickingham. They were in a huge, cold room in the London winter, showing up in the morning at a time they would normally still be asleep, and unaccustomed to making music in a studio that early. The sound in the room was awful. They had to deal with every moment being filmed, as well as still photographers roaming around them constantly. Director Lindsay-Hogg was badgering them about where they would do the live show. They couldn't agree.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi57WimA-t8XJB8QxRilig0SWNrszX9JJgG8KbwA-HgnkaZSn_QZqU0qSZYGB6a3d-eyGA-nNDhSszOTdMeP97IlwlqqPEHFZeIpZazwTBQZkJcpkMcwrHj8aa3Ms0ZoGY2vKJQU6Ve9IS7LoxfSkIZCsq1PuSAHn4uCK9MqJHvSBRZj-tjiw/s275/quit.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi57WimA-t8XJB8QxRilig0SWNrszX9JJgG8KbwA-HgnkaZSn_QZqU0qSZYGB6a3d-eyGA-nNDhSszOTdMeP97IlwlqqPEHFZeIpZazwTBQZkJcpkMcwrHj8aa3Ms0ZoGY2vKJQU6Ve9IS7LoxfSkIZCsq1PuSAHn4uCK9MqJHvSBRZj-tjiw/s1600/quit.jpg" width="275" /></a></div>Harrison's departure seemed to change the game. The other three Beatles met with him and all agreed they weren't going back to Twickingham, they weren't doing a TV show but the footage could be used for a feature film (they owed their studio one anyway) and they weren't going out of the country for a live show (which is what their director wanted.) George helped organize the equipment needed to record in the Apple headquarters basement.<p></p><p>The mood lightened immediately when they got there, where a a homey space was created that they all liked. Though the film shows a disconcerting amount of jamming and fooling around, they got down to working out songs. This is the stuff that I really like, and I suppose anyone who has been in a musical group, especially one working with original songs, will recognize the process, even if this is on a whole other level. I love artistic process movies. I love Sting's <i>Bring On The Night</i>. So even what may seem tedious to others tends to delight me.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglB3cJrNHBAAAB1yjc33EO4n5dIZB3qUmLk9FDvlXIJB09NW9J7hh41qlMGvLwJr_SLfZDxYr6JuG6Rchm3OX-II4aQtHBoNMfH3uCkUKpXsnlrNMDNog6Tup6Z9M96krE9xtaM42-nh1AxdA7G9k3RMGIaU7bfIsI1PANdOkJXEm1VQTVOw/s700/get-back-700x352.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="352" data-original-width="700" height="161" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglB3cJrNHBAAAB1yjc33EO4n5dIZB3qUmLk9FDvlXIJB09NW9J7hh41qlMGvLwJr_SLfZDxYr6JuG6Rchm3OX-II4aQtHBoNMfH3uCkUKpXsnlrNMDNog6Tup6Z9M96krE9xtaM42-nh1AxdA7G9k3RMGIaU7bfIsI1PANdOkJXEm1VQTVOw/s320/get-back-700x352.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>But several songs are getting bogged down, with several of the Beatles realizing they need another player, someone to do keyboards live. Then one day, Billy Preston just shows up to say hello--he has known them since they were all teenagers playing dubious clubs in Hamburg. (In fact, George Harrison had been talking him up to the others, and invited him to "drop in.")<p></p><p> They ask him to sit in on the song they're working on ("I've Got A Feeling"), and immediately everything starts to fall into place. Billy Preston provides the musical spark to several songs that completes them, and gets the juices going. One of the early highlights of the series is watching Paul McCartney working out the basics of "Get Back" from scratch. Then we see the lyrics gradually change from an anti-racist protest song (anyone remember Enoch Powell?) to the words we know. Billy Preston's keyboards finally completes it. He remained part of the group through the rest of the sessions. His work on "Get Back" has been praised, but he's equally essential to "Don't Let Me Down." </p><p>Throughout we hear each of the Beatles bringing in songs (several times, something they had written the night before), and everyone gets interested. Most of these songs, and others they are working on, will appear (we know now) either on their next album, the incomparable <i>Abbey Road</i>, or, more hauntingly, on their post-Beatles solo albums. The explorations of George Harrison's song "Something" are especially fascinating. The musical accompaniment for once comes easily, and that great tune is there. But Harrison has almost no lyrics to what will eventually be known as one of the greatest love songs of all time. It sounds so heartfelt, but for months, George didn't know what "something in the way she moves" attracts me like. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXVjeXFKmDxkRalmlt48o01NwF3Y1DVttqF7lvX88Z3g8FBEvxPknHraj5vvrqUTFU1HuD1pUJ0zOwQZefOTOUf1DP3wW1UDVxobG_9N5MALlMIG0wy6yYbHLnNClxvTS4hawKiOBaOy7KiHDS-a_4iU-J-NQ5_ts4cog84caoDoGX--1RDg/s680/getback02.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="425" data-original-width="680" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXVjeXFKmDxkRalmlt48o01NwF3Y1DVttqF7lvX88Z3g8FBEvxPknHraj5vvrqUTFU1HuD1pUJ0zOwQZefOTOUf1DP3wW1UDVxobG_9N5MALlMIG0wy6yYbHLnNClxvTS4hawKiOBaOy7KiHDS-a_4iU-J-NQ5_ts4cog84caoDoGX--1RDg/s320/getback02.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>Of the songs that eventually do make it on the </span><i style="text-align: left;">Let It Be</i><span style="text-align: left;"> album, one of the most troublesome is "Two of Us." It was the song Paul and George argued about at Twickingham. For weeks the group is never satisfied with it, no matter how many times they do it--and they do it a lot. Paul and John sing it to each other in posh London accents, Scottish accents, Bob Dylan accents, and eventually sing it without moving their lips, like two crazed ventriloquists. But it is Paul getting tired of playing the electric bass and picking up an acoustic guitar that gets the song going, as a kind of skiffle or folk song, with Ringo's tasty drumming and George playing bass notes on his electric guitar.</span></div><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjcKx22vh8upYXhCYhu9MenHMFrp9M7cnHosJLJT8lHw93YUCXTNOhB8x2h7aZnI_bv6hPVEksW1ogiBUvGqrOwWxLBmUj_JJnkjGtu-RmYjiymUfrG3WsfsJh78FA33DzWEMmuw9p56IWESOcuEvg3CpRgR2SO_eFuj7DLvHk5qn_2ReW4g/s1267/MV5BNThkZWM5NmUtYjVhYi00ZjBmLWI0YTktMDIyNDcyYmUyYzIxXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyODY2Njk4ODk@._V1_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="686" data-original-width="1267" height="173" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjcKx22vh8upYXhCYhu9MenHMFrp9M7cnHosJLJT8lHw93YUCXTNOhB8x2h7aZnI_bv6hPVEksW1ogiBUvGqrOwWxLBmUj_JJnkjGtu-RmYjiymUfrG3WsfsJh78FA33DzWEMmuw9p56IWESOcuEvg3CpRgR2SO_eFuj7DLvHk5qn_2ReW4g/s320/MV5BNThkZWM5NmUtYjVhYi00ZjBmLWI0YTktMDIyNDcyYmUyYzIxXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyODY2Njk4ODk@._V1_.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Yoko Ono has been a constant presence sitting silently beside John (in <i>Let It Be</i> she seems ominous; in <i>Get Back</i>, pretty neutral. Both she and George Harrison's second wife Olivia are listed as producers for the <i>Get Back </i>series.) By the third and fourth week of the sessions, the studio opens up. Paul's girlfriend Linda Eastman (who was shown as present once at Twickingham) brings her six year old daughter Heather to the Apple studio, and Heather's interactions with John, George and Ringo as well as Paul, and her imitation of a Yoko vocal, are highlights. (Paul and Linda would marry a week before John and Yoko. Paul soon adopted Heather as his daughter.) Patti Harrison and Ringo's wife Maureen also visit the studio, and most of them listen to a day's recordings in the control room together. These are some of the most affecting scenes.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMd3EM3B2rzzs_wDZYbn-Sw8ADcabAACSb4gxfNtXT12TAeoSsE9DebCgbsEF2ttY5I_Eo3TEXboFnbzFqIDePEx40zWo_P5gSFcFNOhaa7kh_2zgleuYN8xCSoXYJ5-d-0hrBJjZv6HzGzu_0pZ6EinUWU911N7EZ_kqJU_9qg9u5iJGU2g/s960/getback04.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="601" data-original-width="960" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMd3EM3B2rzzs_wDZYbn-Sw8ADcabAACSb4gxfNtXT12TAeoSsE9DebCgbsEF2ttY5I_Eo3TEXboFnbzFqIDePEx40zWo_P5gSFcFNOhaa7kh_2zgleuYN8xCSoXYJ5-d-0hrBJjZv6HzGzu_0pZ6EinUWU911N7EZ_kqJU_9qg9u5iJGU2g/s320/getback04.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>But the Beatles can still never agree on a live show, and until the last moment, aren't sure if they will do their now famous rooftop concert. Jackson intercuts the entire concert (just five songs, some repeated). He included more street reaction than did <i>Let It Be</i>, so Jackson has the narrative of the police officers arriving, being diverted and finally ascending to the roof, all in split screens. The Beatles road manager finally tries to turn off George's amp, but he curtly turns it back on and they finish the song. <div><br /></div><div> Each time I've seen these scenes I've gotten a different impression. Sometimes the street interviews were mindless distractions. Other times they were overpowered by the energy of the music. Once I marveled at the reaction of people on adjacent rooftops and the street. There's no telling how well they could hear (a segment in the Beatles Anthology suggests the sound wasn't really very loud on the street), but they show little emotion. I couldn't help thinking of the contrast with the years of screams and fainting. On the other hand, the people complaining about their music and the police showing up could have been straight out of <i>A Hard Day's Night</i>. That much didn't change.<p></p><p>I was surprised then by how briefly Jackson treats the final day, in which the Beatles alone in the studio record the acoustic "Two of Us" and the two McCartney piano numbers, now classics: "The Long and Winding Road" and "Let It Be." The movie <i>Let It Be</i> presented full versions of both songs, but without context, it reinforced that movie's narrative of a dominating McCartney, and the others literally (in this scene) sitting at a lower level, playing supporting parts. In context, it was just the most efficient way to do the final recordings of these two songs, at the end of an exhausting month. However, it would have been nice to hear more of them. ( For my money, the best cut of "Let It Be" on film is in the Beatles Anthology.) </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2I0W4-PCtDgYTIs_aJBUlvURiqzQNk7ZeSv1RcKvncYlLhkQuVNpgH0L6WAP3uK7BhHiDOPOKkbahzOcTJY674nbLOl5BxsF2CFkDICp4_0ZNG-1ZuYWeQMjL_tTWz5DseO9bLXc34E3JZGQgYmtmfAwb6vpKKkvqfyluuWNmCWq0rFxcsw/s1536/MV5BMDBhNzRhMDYtYWFiYS00NmY5LTk1YzctZDY2OGU3NzIzY2U1XkEyXkFqcGdeQWRvb2xpbmhk._V1_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="864" data-original-width="1536" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2I0W4-PCtDgYTIs_aJBUlvURiqzQNk7ZeSv1RcKvncYlLhkQuVNpgH0L6WAP3uK7BhHiDOPOKkbahzOcTJY674nbLOl5BxsF2CFkDICp4_0ZNG-1ZuYWeQMjL_tTWz5DseO9bLXc34E3JZGQgYmtmfAwb6vpKKkvqfyluuWNmCWq0rFxcsw/s320/MV5BMDBhNzRhMDYtYWFiYS00NmY5LTk1YzctZDY2OGU3NzIzY2U1XkEyXkFqcGdeQWRvb2xpbmhk._V1_.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>What about the Beatles themselves? Paul McCartney is neither the authoritarian monster and central villain that the <i>Let It Be</i> movie casts him to be (though his beard and black suit don't help), but neither is he the genial and articulate statesman of interviews. Emotionally he seems all over the place--capable of far-seeing insights and long monologues of near nonsense. He comes off as a paradox at times. For example, who was the most actively opposed to doing the rooftop concert? And who looked like he was having the best time doing it? McCartney, both. <p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCshCi1m8QyNWNJPIt-E3eXp7mwEs8VJD2USbVY-z83I31mjsxYxawcEzqO-moU2qtpzx0tr4DtuQA4vUbZk2ygJyWTuzPvw4KvWEBvnw-XjJcpf996x2VLEZofLiDMjoR_D7SHR_Qb3sqFIHHfkOgxbTbCP19LXrbFmzMRZoIc7Vdg8ObJQ/s1200/the-beatles-get-back.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1200" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCshCi1m8QyNWNJPIt-E3eXp7mwEs8VJD2USbVY-z83I31mjsxYxawcEzqO-moU2qtpzx0tr4DtuQA4vUbZk2ygJyWTuzPvw4KvWEBvnw-XjJcpf996x2VLEZofLiDMjoR_D7SHR_Qb3sqFIHHfkOgxbTbCP19LXrbFmzMRZoIc7Vdg8ObJQ/s320/the-beatles-get-back.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>John Lennon is always the class clown, but he's also very quiet and subdued for long stretches, though when they play in the Apple basement he's right there, energetic and engaged. There are moments when both McCartney and especially Lennon are pretty open about their fears and insecurities, past and present. Paul is uncomfortable in his role and worried about the band's direction. On the music itself, he worries that his classic ballads drag too much. John is contrite for showing up late and not being at his best. (This may be the result of his reputed occasional heroin use, or he's just sick. It's the flu season and both Paul and Ringo also complain of being ill at different times.) John is realistic about the limits of his own guitar work, though I was surprised to see that he did the guitar solos on "Get Back," and some of the jams show he had more lead guitar skills than I would have guessed.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNmdLw-sD58rFNS2P9ByGRZKlzilg9ehhncUmzXUWORnpZHBYbvgg2HM1beFkRfTgqrTwfptnGHOp2sUtAt4ZRY_NzE5MyrEirtxEw57VP1j8K52P6EOmIOM0ZhCR6TjzMVGKNMyVd9C7RTm2VZ3EgpU87pvR8NPfMhPpH10rWgFfPMqyFcg/s500/get-back-sessions-harrison-scarf-1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="500" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNmdLw-sD58rFNS2P9ByGRZKlzilg9ehhncUmzXUWORnpZHBYbvgg2HM1beFkRfTgqrTwfptnGHOp2sUtAt4ZRY_NzE5MyrEirtxEw57VP1j8K52P6EOmIOM0ZhCR6TjzMVGKNMyVd9C7RTm2VZ3EgpU87pvR8NPfMhPpH10rWgFfPMqyFcg/s320/get-back-sessions-harrison-scarf-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>George Harrison appears all black or all white, sour or sunny, and in Martin Scorsese's biographical film about him, that's how Ringo describes him: either saint or sinner, nothing in between. It wouldn't be until <i>Abbey Road</i> and his own <i>All Things Must Pass</i> album (the most successful of all the immediate post-Beatles releases), that the quality of his songwriting was fully revealed, along with his unique, haunting and supple voice. Just before the Get Back sessions, he had spent six months producing other artists, and his production of <i>All Things Must Pass</i> (despite what Spector did to it) is musically remarkable. In that sense, he never really had a "solo" career. He was the instigator of the Traveling Wilburys in the early 90s, which he formed (Olivia Harrison said in the Scorsese film) because he missed being in a group. He missed the Beatles. <p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp2rK5l_Zt9FpqXiZhX1MxXTZR0g3fzUNq8e3FT_BQ9pYUoVWDixamEU2LwM4Ls8rdqIiWGe4mP1ZqifV0-Xd9Nz18kx8BTBN95xX49_vNVIPd4RRHhDDNaZO3UG_JkujCU2Qb_olqlFKVoShssrPON-BRlha9sr1s1Tha1cZGBtRpEvxdLg/s1000/1637169125_First-in-London-for-the-much-awaited-mini-series-The-Beatles-Get.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp2rK5l_Zt9FpqXiZhX1MxXTZR0g3fzUNq8e3FT_BQ9pYUoVWDixamEU2LwM4Ls8rdqIiWGe4mP1ZqifV0-Xd9Nz18kx8BTBN95xX49_vNVIPd4RRHhDDNaZO3UG_JkujCU2Qb_olqlFKVoShssrPON-BRlha9sr1s1Tha1cZGBtRpEvxdLg/s320/1637169125_First-in-London-for-the-much-awaited-mini-series-The-Beatles-Get.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Ringo Starr was the backbone of the Beatles sound, and the glue that held the Beatles together. Though he's not heard saying much in this series, it's partly because he does his job so well. A lot of Beatles songs sound simple until you get into their structure. For instance, George comes in with a song, "I, Me, Mine," best known now for its eloquent lyrics, that he was inspired to write by seeing a grand waltz performed on a TV movie. Most of the song is in waltz time (John and Yoko actually waltz to it), though it breaks into a four-four rocker, and back again. Other songs are replete with even more subtle complications, and Ringo has to engineer these time-jumps seamlessly. <p></p><p>Even so, Ringo has a nice scene doing a comic take to the delight of Heather McCartney, and also when he brings in the basic idea for "Octopus' Garden"-- George (the other non-Lennon-McCartney songwriter) immediately starts working with him to extend it, soon charming everyone and interesting the other Beatles in developing it.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0mLYzXiO-nBjvGVlrYEUl_qCdn6O3fYQDHh0ZqATHcJeT99nIcMY0rMZ73fGmzO_sQy7eZlth2pdoQlmqEdfgTcWlD8lGKVunGXtHJeVlRIqo8XMqLCNfW9C9QV2ODgoAqqPzlmM46sASdYJFZWnrtPtimGFTPcU4ieXDEM6b-tfifqkF0w/s2362/ER-0073-13_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqvyIhey5-bbhpfCG1b5cFTfQCuGBCpXn29iYMHe0Hogw.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1476" data-original-width="2362" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0mLYzXiO-nBjvGVlrYEUl_qCdn6O3fYQDHh0ZqATHcJeT99nIcMY0rMZ73fGmzO_sQy7eZlth2pdoQlmqEdfgTcWlD8lGKVunGXtHJeVlRIqo8XMqLCNfW9C9QV2ODgoAqqPzlmM46sASdYJFZWnrtPtimGFTPcU4ieXDEM6b-tfifqkF0w/w400-h250/ER-0073-13_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqvyIhey5-bbhpfCG1b5cFTfQCuGBCpXn29iYMHe0Hogw.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Transcending all other impressions of this series is this magic opportunity to spend this much time with these four extraordinary people, all of them still in their twenties, as this extraordinary group. Though this experiment was artificial in that it wasn't how the Beatles made their records anymore, it did bring them together every day over an extended period for the last time. In the decade to come, as they went their separate ways (though different combinations of them collaborated), they all had periods of depression or despondency, and they all at times had serious drug and/or alcohol problems; two marriages ended, and they all endured tragedies. John Lennon was weeks past his 40th birthday when he was shot dead. These hours in the studio, during which they often revisited their past music as well as shaping new songs, seem like a time out of time.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxd8oIbEXtRU-1NNSqJhePUIvVGeb50xUko_YP4dY_zcFbluH8x6auAItU29FiXN4cK_B05VH26FO6Y5WhaLD_VApIoSKv9dsXKhio14ZjJjJjjoIbaX-Oe1TC6Hkd8uL8SeSZsrETORce0LZPhwoAQD7HGDmzSn0Hfb0A1eP49jaGN1jEgg/s911/john-lennon-the-beatles-get-back.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="513" data-original-width="911" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxd8oIbEXtRU-1NNSqJhePUIvVGeb50xUko_YP4dY_zcFbluH8x6auAItU29FiXN4cK_B05VH26FO6Y5WhaLD_VApIoSKv9dsXKhio14ZjJjJjjoIbaX-Oe1TC6Hkd8uL8SeSZsrETORce0LZPhwoAQD7HGDmzSn0Hfb0A1eP49jaGN1jEgg/s320/john-lennon-the-beatles-get-back.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>With the benefit of hindsight, we do see suggestions of what would soon break up the band. We also see the Beatles' luck start to change. In the beginning they happened to find the right manager, the right producer, and then the right film director to help them blossom. But this film makes a joke of their association with "Magic Alex," the supposed electronics genius they hired who is exposed as a total and expensive charlatan. Not so funny is reference to John Lennon meeting Allen Klein, and his glowing account of Klein's knowledge and business acumen. Eventually, Lennon convinced George and Ringo to make Klein (then managing the Rolling Stones) the group's manager. Paul saw through Klein, and the resulting conflict was the proximate cause for the Beatles to break up. Klein did get them more money, but his nefarious schemes eventually turned John and especially George against him. They all dumped him, and he became an active nemesis for awhile, until more money changed hands. <p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYowFy71gpQju14Hxb9A3X_DD9VG9zhXbK2eTAj_5RuFyDxwaeSfa7ipY2wd3rdIGQZ6MxpPfAxPqW94XCGqvhKPu60HfnWn78eLhuaEWezBIAzHuK_pibiNaondOm5wGsViWjK2q8rB_28oMcSyUFaxxQgsN2AtNBn1IpxRzHsyegPS03lw/s960/getback03.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="601" data-original-width="960" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYowFy71gpQju14Hxb9A3X_DD9VG9zhXbK2eTAj_5RuFyDxwaeSfa7ipY2wd3rdIGQZ6MxpPfAxPqW94XCGqvhKPu60HfnWn78eLhuaEWezBIAzHuK_pibiNaondOm5wGsViWjK2q8rB_28oMcSyUFaxxQgsN2AtNBn1IpxRzHsyegPS03lw/w400-h250/getback03.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>Also at about this time, John and George brought legendary producer Phil Spector into their efforts, and Spector's production of the long delayed <i>Let It Be</i> album did not go over well. Eventually, McCartney backed a re-release that stripped it of Spector's effects, for the album <i>Let It Be Naked</i>. <p></p><p>Yet, just weeks after the rooftop concert, the Beatles began recording again, this time with their producer of all previous records, George Martin, and did so at their EMI studios on Abbey Road, for their last, transcendent album. And in the end... </p></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-46960718747254007962022-09-12T03:07:00.000-07:002022-10-24T00:12:34.711-07:00Says I To Myself, or Maybe the Universe<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqxrEdEo6mteZBmczWc9zhTWM8IrXm3qR9Jeg6vi-HbO7gZRrzZq6951nC7RANo_rNi4QFydKg1peI8QU35aUt8KkybJ2FJHOJF9cz3n9Arl6jXLz69Is8_wIHjsYoVAHzHnxG1dj665rrRJhBJMyEaa-5HK5FEbCDLHi26C5BzXKfPzWK6Q/s1280/queen-elizabeth-coronoation-tv-guide-cover-1953.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqxrEdEo6mteZBmczWc9zhTWM8IrXm3qR9Jeg6vi-HbO7gZRrzZq6951nC7RANo_rNi4QFydKg1peI8QU35aUt8KkybJ2FJHOJF9cz3n9Arl6jXLz69Is8_wIHjsYoVAHzHnxG1dj665rrRJhBJMyEaa-5HK5FEbCDLHi26C5BzXKfPzWK6Q/w400-h225/queen-elizabeth-coronoation-tv-guide-cover-1953.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>When commentators were falling over each other trying to illustrate what a long time Queen Elizabeth II had been queen (xx number of Prime Ministers and Presidents, etc.), they hit home with this statistic: they said that only 10% of the world's current population had been alive when Elizabeth was crowned Queen.<p></p><p>Well, that was June 1953, I was alive and a few weeks shy of my 7th birthday. I have a vague recollection of the royal procession televised in black and white, but that's likely from seeing it later. But I could have seen it. I'd certainly seen Hopalong Cassidy and Captain Video. (I'd also pondered the mystery of Bishop Sheen's guardian angel erasing his blackboard, just out of sight of the camera on his Tuesday night show.) </p><p>When I heard this 10% statistic (assuming it is accurate), I was knocked back a bit. While I didn't realize my age group is that much of a minority (my generation was pretty large), it's not news that I'm not swimming in the Zeitgeist the way I once did. Not that I even want to.</p><p>Since my retirement I've pursued the second look-- examination of some worlds of my past, but from perspectives made possible by the passage of time. That's probably not surprising to anyone who has been reading this blog since 2016. It's quite a lot of what I've been writing about.</p><p>Writing about a past of limited interest to that 90%, and doing so on an outmoded medium on the Internet, is not a recipe for a readership of clamoring millions. Thanks also to Blogger ending support for the email notification system of new posts, my already small officially measured readership has diminished further. I can't say I'm happy about mostly talking to myself, but I'm not about to change what I'm doing.</p><p> Not everybody gets this chance--to look back, to reexamine, to discover aspects of the past I didn't know or understand, to explore the textures of the past in the present, to go deeper, to connect up those scattered memories into contexts. Sometimes to experience the shiver of recognition, as when I recently flipped through an old history textbook I'd used in probably eighth grade, as seeing certain illustrations prompted an eerie echo of staring at them in 1958. It's not all bliss--some memories revived do haunt the nights. But I'm still not going to miss this opportunity. I don't apologize to anyone for this, and I expect to keep doing it. </p><p> Maybe I'll find a better platform to write about it, but so far it hasn't bothered me enough to spend the time looking for one. I spent way too much time in my life writing fruitless proposals or begging for assignments, trying to please editors and agents. I know I'm overcompensating, but to me the Internet blog means I write and I publish it, no proposals to be approved, no publication situations or egos to deal with. No market research. No submitting manuscripts and waiting. So nobody looking over my shoulder. I just write it (hard enough, thank you) and publish it. In terms of access, my potential readership is the entire world, for as long as this thing is connected to the servers. There's nothing stopping them but themselves.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-55315543077058311842022-07-16T02:52:00.006-07:002022-10-12T03:02:57.732-07:00Coincidentally Yours<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3OcYx03YcDv4IYNxeIzq8jhXDN2YB5nTyDsYFOns_JziOA4JiwXc3qJ8r76YfbiXppJaco5hOLQkgERmaXu7SwXT5Q0Zvp_vjkReB5nPwpNzu2h0j3lZG1NWjScKzGl4sayE60Bos0XK0ecYD1CNnMmqDGvDo3ssHWvmkh0Rr-Y3yNz9hyqo/s2068/Vintage-1950s-Pyrex7878-Primary-Colors-Mix7878ing-pic-1A-2048_10.10-dda1e115-f.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2068" data-original-width="2068" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3OcYx03YcDv4IYNxeIzq8jhXDN2YB5nTyDsYFOns_JziOA4JiwXc3qJ8r76YfbiXppJaco5hOLQkgERmaXu7SwXT5Q0Zvp_vjkReB5nPwpNzu2h0j3lZG1NWjScKzGl4sayE60Bos0XK0ecYD1CNnMmqDGvDo3ssHWvmkh0Rr-Y3yNz9hyqo/s320/Vintage-1950s-Pyrex7878-Primary-Colors-Mix7878ing-pic-1A-2048_10.10-dda1e115-f.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /> Within our little lives, there are mysteries. Why things happen can have an obvious causality, or at least a logic. Or the causality can elude us. Our usual ways of thinking don't quite work.</span></div><p></p><p>I'm a big fan of coincidences (and coincidentally, someone in college nicknamed me Big Coincidence, playing off the syllables in my name.) I've always maintained that as the kind of writer I was professionally, serendipity--useful coincidence--was my most valuable research tool. So I think about these things, and notice them.</p><p> I have a few recent examples to ponder. One of them involves George Orwell. For a forgotten reason--if there was a reason--I had a sudden hankering to read an Orwell essay, and I knew I had a book of Orwell essays. But when I looked in the Orwell section on one of my bookshelves, it wasn't there. I kept looking everywhere I could think of it might be but could not find it. And as I browsed I would wander back to the shelf where other Orwell books resided. One title I did have was <i>Coming Up for Air. </i>I realized that I'd never read it and knew nothing about it.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUfkAvtLcjNgdxNDDf5_QCv5mVBTHQOIhz6BcP6G1O5Smn13C1sZ2p5EXO_eCoB06sxXpOZ1FzOBgL6Va0rRE2GA6IAAlhYGOtu5eKdTlYTDYvLi_eUa3jib-ik0aduy6gVXvAmAZ098VRIW0lI29Cf-58ZN3Ak65HZmFiF8msFM3vkhL68K0/s270/coorwell.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="187" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUfkAvtLcjNgdxNDDf5_QCv5mVBTHQOIhz6BcP6G1O5Smn13C1sZ2p5EXO_eCoB06sxXpOZ1FzOBgL6Va0rRE2GA6IAAlhYGOtu5eKdTlYTDYvLi_eUa3jib-ik0aduy6gVXvAmAZ098VRIW0lI29Cf-58ZN3Ak65HZmFiF8msFM3vkhL68K0/s1600/coorwell.jpg" width="187" /></a></div>Shortly thereafter, perhaps that same day, I was browsing the latest additions to the Arts and Letters Daily, an online selection of current articles with links, just to see what was new that might interest me. Near the top was an article on Orwell. The Daily, like a lot of Internet sites now, is not as useful as it once was, since many of the publications it links to keep their articles behind a pay wall or otherwise restrict them. But I found I could read this one, and it dealt largely with Orwell's early and neglected novel, <i>Coming Up For Air.</i><p></p><p>This is an authentic coincidence, seemingly made more strange because the novel is so obscure. It is a personal coincidence--that is, a coincidence only to me. It's difficult to judge the extent of the coincidence: that is, just how unlikely it is, with the strong implication that the less likely, the more meaningful. Another such coincidence happened to me since. I had finished reading a contemporary novel that I found admirable, until the end jolted me with a troubling and seemingly artificial but terrible fate to an endearing character. I felt betrayed, and especially given my age and the times, this is not something I want to encounter in my reading anymore. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmnqLLYzWAlFNTi-u4CMdIA39e078CkX96fYMTZH-OZ6zJarEr5hSa__VsKxHkcX18u1pZLbUpm0TAnH94keDdwbYmFKJR5D2ldAF8RsFan79D-SsrwNzfpUYwtqz2nrGSNe0hLZm7DFHmx3SdHF_d4lSBgRqnFKqSpnovhhyXqvrFCMEXNos/s243/coyellow.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="208" data-original-width="243" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmnqLLYzWAlFNTi-u4CMdIA39e078CkX96fYMTZH-OZ6zJarEr5hSa__VsKxHkcX18u1pZLbUpm0TAnH94keDdwbYmFKJR5D2ldAF8RsFan79D-SsrwNzfpUYwtqz2nrGSNe0hLZm7DFHmx3SdHF_d4lSBgRqnFKqSpnovhhyXqvrFCMEXNos/s1600/coyellow.jpg" width="243" /></a></div>So I sought out a story to clear my emotions--the kind much less likely to offer such a gut punch. I got down my volume of Sherlock Holmes stories, and happened on one I'd never read before, called "The Adventure of the Yellow Face." Watson starts off noting that most of his stories are about Holmes' triumphs of deduction, but he's also been wrong. In this case his theory is completely wrong. In the end it is revealed that a wife was trying to conceal something from her husband that turned out to be a child from a former marriage--a marriage to a black man that resulted in a black child. Much to her astonishment, her husband immediately accepts the child. It is a very short and singular Holmes story that I've never seen dramatized (and I've seen pretty much all) or heard referred to, or knew anything about.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9czHeJe2r9ybrpVxdjdTiKy0DTUKD6kEcSNuzfnZrFOZp4sMXya-AWOYYU9wHOmr5vLEBujHvmVKis5DgrkhLBYhMKGG6grVECV0xPGDjSYmNBG7euO2suHEXUd3OWhRF4ziwfpYDwHhDfOGv_HZE1SxJs4ms3snGQsdeuQge_pOnVuwzZlM/s458/comeyer.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="458" data-original-width="458" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9czHeJe2r9ybrpVxdjdTiKy0DTUKD6kEcSNuzfnZrFOZp4sMXya-AWOYYU9wHOmr5vLEBujHvmVKis5DgrkhLBYhMKGG6grVECV0xPGDjSYmNBG7euO2suHEXUd3OWhRF4ziwfpYDwHhDfOGv_HZE1SxJs4ms3snGQsdeuQge_pOnVuwzZlM/s320/comeyer.png" width="320" /></a></div>The next evening I was looking at a YouTube video interview of Nicholas Meyer, writer and director of several Star Trek projects, the proximate reason for checking out the video, though I also liked hearing him talk, as he is an intelligent talker. He also has written several Sherlock Holmes novels (I knew of only his first, and didn't consciously remember it), and this interview seemed to be on the occasion of his latest. He was commenting on instances of casual stereotyping of Jews and non-white races in the Conan Doyle Holmes stories, typical of his times. But there was an exception he said, a little story called "The Yellow Face."<p></p><p>That I picked out a video from everything on YouTube that mentioned the obscure story I'd read the night before is certainly a coincidence. But coincidence, like serendipity, is about attention. Had I really never heard of that story before? Perhaps I had, but it meant nothing to me at the time. It might not have meant much to me this time, had I not just read it. (I also recall a shiver when I anticipated Meyer was going to mention it just before he did.) </p><p>Serendipity, at least as a research technique, is also like that: it's about attention. Perhaps it is remarkable that a book pertinent to research on my latest project is sitting there on a sale table in front of the Harvard Bookstore--a book (in the case I'm thinking of, a kind of anthology) I didn't know existed, with authors I did not know. But had I not been paying attention to books that could be relevant to my research, it might have escaped my notice entirely. It was the convergence of my interest and attention, and the presence of the book (and then later, how useful it became--I contacted several of its authors), that made it serendipitous. It may also be akin to Jung's theory of synchronicity, summarized in a song by Sting as: "if you act as you think/the missing link/synchronicity."</p><p>But that doesn't explain everything about coincidence or related phenomena. And my Orwell story isn't over. </p><p>Eventually I concluded that my book of Orwell essays had been among the books I sold in Pittsburgh before I trekked to California. But since I had became so obsessed with the idea of reading Orwell essays, I went on Amazon to buy a collection. I paused over a definitive and expensive collection, but after more research I honed in on what seemed to be a more than adequate selection in a fairly affordable volume. I chose it for my shopping cart and was about to complete the purchase when I just stopped, for no particular reason except that I didn't want to complete it at that moment.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQwxzAAitfAgPGaXUn7wEzVtEd4Ucr_5tAkuMRffIF2No8iGMmEr-7ISps85g5kIbJrlUutYDXGzaOfvE2WxYNXptw2_j0JQCV5bxBGwyGEN9FMqbe5NvfiKq7n7YIbADfz1iPOBz7sP-8rkAnJUmWPqoKOvIocswqzEkHLTKo_GgaTkyX0MU/s350/coessays.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="202" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQwxzAAitfAgPGaXUn7wEzVtEd4Ucr_5tAkuMRffIF2No8iGMmEr-7ISps85g5kIbJrlUutYDXGzaOfvE2WxYNXptw2_j0JQCV5bxBGwyGEN9FMqbe5NvfiKq7n7YIbADfz1iPOBz7sP-8rkAnJUmWPqoKOvIocswqzEkHLTKo_GgaTkyX0MU/s320/coessays.jpg" width="185" /></a></div>Within the next few days my eyes strayed from my computer to the bookshelves on my right--and there it was. Not only was it my book of Orwell essays, it was an earlier edition of precisely the selection I was going to buy. <p></p><p>So what do we call this? An intuition of some kind in one part of my brain telling my fingers not to press the purchase button? Or a simple coincidence? I'd certainly made that particular error before--of buying a new copy of a book I couldn't find, and then finding the copy I already had. Had that subconsciously influenced my hesitation to not risk doing it again, at least not yet? Or should we just call it luck?</p><p><br /></p><p>The final odd event seems to be in a class by itself. One evening at dinner my partner Margaret told me about a strange dream she'd had. All she remembered was an image: of brightly colored bowls of different sizes, nested in one another. She remembered this image because she had no associations for these bowls--they weren't from her childhood or had she ever had them herself.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_dGRw4iJwuasuXsBtb6OC40hwMGIOaoSB7tQf98bSjNCP0dZVfE3tDWUrmpG2wbW6IbfWIh2j9Si9HmOoSuNULm6MZqMY97BkNzdcmKKJ6kQL2Q3qQMREN8HFqJVflDd6TlT-xMTPM1MalYPIiV-MJdsOUg_ROzPDIY4adjet0kja7S-LY-g/s600/82492a5ad3e2db9373563a7978831c80.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="600" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_dGRw4iJwuasuXsBtb6OC40hwMGIOaoSB7tQf98bSjNCP0dZVfE3tDWUrmpG2wbW6IbfWIh2j9Si9HmOoSuNULm6MZqMY97BkNzdcmKKJ6kQL2Q3qQMREN8HFqJVflDd6TlT-xMTPM1MalYPIiV-MJdsOUg_ROzPDIY4adjet0kja7S-LY-g/s320/82492a5ad3e2db9373563a7978831c80.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>But as soon as she said it, a memory was awakened in me. Even though I'd recently written about the home of my childhood and its contents in the 1950s, including our Fiestaware and 1950s aluminum tumblers, I had completely forgotten the bowls of various sizes, each a single bright primary color (brighter in memory than these contemporary photos), that my mother used in our kitchen in the 1950s, with at least some of them in use for decades more. As soon as Margaret said the words, I saw them, I remembered them right down to which size bowl was which color. That night, I looked them up on the Internet, and sure enough, there were photos of these early Pyrex bowls, sets of which are now collectors items.<p></p><p>So Margaret had a dream, not of her childhood, but of mine. I wonder what to call that? </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-39569468835670524382022-05-24T22:25:00.004-07:002023-05-28T22:12:39.379-07:00TV and Me: Disney (Part 3) Tomorrowland and Other Adventures<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiabiVSIc8rNx9g1yrinDn_sjtXQkHIXVh_mtViRREqz0OMIm8eOxjzZWLYhyphenhyphenVuptMzCE-1j7jOov5PWVZb2GnhQTLBMoJHQderO4MGlF96T1cpDIDOVTEO-q3bzcs99M11jnlYqA/s1600/man-in-space-launch.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="472" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiabiVSIc8rNx9g1yrinDn_sjtXQkHIXVh_mtViRREqz0OMIm8eOxjzZWLYhyphenhyphenVuptMzCE-1j7jOov5PWVZb2GnhQTLBMoJHQderO4MGlF96T1cpDIDOVTEO-q3bzcs99M11jnlYqA/s1600/man-in-space-launch.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><i><br />TV and I grew up together. This is our story. Ninth in a<a href="http://dreamingup.blogspot.com/search/label/TV%20and%20Me"> series.</a></i><br /><div><br /></div><div>
From its first episode in the fall of 1954, the <i>Disneyland</i> TV hour began with a review of the four "lands" before a story from one of them would then begin. First that season there was Fantasyland, then Adventureland. They alternated for awhile. By December and the eighth episode, there was Frontierland, and so Davy Crockett was in that mix. But for weeks and months and-- it seemed like-- years, I waited and waited for the one I most wanted: Tomorrowland.<div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_iufEu27RyBw4eID1R3lZYc2NhA2BJku29LBfU7HEZnblcRCvS-6ofKhRV2ld-BKTJU9jRcWZrUxmvg2hPG6vPTxKGlI3f-T8A5bQ6N49JFBcj6_sG2pQxJ_UpRLXybz-lSsIdXyu8S7w6kUytz3Xalrh1XPbiKIhYIsuS91HNcb1qEqiqA/s287/tomorrowland.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="175" data-original-width="287" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_iufEu27RyBw4eID1R3lZYc2NhA2BJku29LBfU7HEZnblcRCvS-6ofKhRV2ld-BKTJU9jRcWZrUxmvg2hPG6vPTxKGlI3f-T8A5bQ6N49JFBcj6_sG2pQxJ_UpRLXybz-lSsIdXyu8S7w6kUytz3Xalrh1XPbiKIhYIsuS91HNcb1qEqiqA/s1600/tomorrowland.jpg" width="287" /></a></div>The waiting was so excruciating for my eight year old self, that even now I am surprised to see that the first Tomorrowland episode wasn't years later, but towards the end of that first season: Episode 20, on March 9, 1955. But it was worth the wait. It was called "Man in Space."</div><div><br /></div><div>Consider that date: early 1955. The first rocket mission to space, the launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik that shocked America, didn't happen until the fall of 1957, nearly three years later. The U.S., which had planned to launch a satellite during the International Geophysical Year of 1957, didn't accomplish this feat until 1958. The Soviet Union launched the first human into Earth orbit in 1961; later that year, the U.S. sent its first man into space in a sub-orbital flight. The first American to attain orbit around the Earth was in 1962. The first American mission that landed the first humans on the moon was in 1969.<br /><br />Well into the 1950s, including that year of 1955, Americans generally just did not take space flight seriously. Though there were development programs ongoing, the predominant American attitude was that space travel was a nutty idea, a juvenile fantasy of no practical value, even if possible. That was also the belief of many in government, and many if not most scientists. Space travel was science fiction.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilmBMdwMwmAqZJA5ZZEHD7H3wdhl0Biw_EYDwjxqkWnxntUnvFNquQGZUOYbyAZjcFUTR9PWO3nGyAfnhh5KYTLFXE4-qButap9mxxdBOONk3qn83hOqVI7hbz4eqpMPDIJXciI5wCYzxSKaWV-rGWNcTH0QmnpslT22NgFrjkMgjgxL9ZUA/s1000/9780262026963.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="840" data-original-width="1000" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilmBMdwMwmAqZJA5ZZEHD7H3wdhl0Biw_EYDwjxqkWnxntUnvFNquQGZUOYbyAZjcFUTR9PWO3nGyAfnhh5KYTLFXE4-qButap9mxxdBOONk3qn83hOqVI7hbz4eqpMPDIJXciI5wCYzxSKaWV-rGWNcTH0QmnpslT22NgFrjkMgjgxL9ZUA/w200-h168/9780262026963.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>But what is accomplished must first be imagined, as William Blake suggested. According to a 2014 book called <i><b>Marketing the Moon: The Selling of the Apollo Lunar Program </b></i>by David Meerman Scott and Richard Jerek, science fiction was in fact the origin of what became reality. </div><div> <div>This book quotes astronomical artist Ron Miller: <i>"Astronautics is unique among all the sciences because it owes its origins to an art form. Long before engineers and scientists took the possibility of spaceflight seriously, virtually all of its aspects were explored first in art and literature..." <br /></i>
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"No one had considered the actual technological problems of space flight until Jules Verne," Miller asserted. Thanks mostly to weapons of war in the 20th century, scientists and engineers became deeply interested in such technological problems. But the goal of manned space flight for the purpose of exploration was still for dreamers.</div><div><br /></div><div>This book singles out some of the ways that the public was prepared for space even before the reality began in 1957 with the launch of Sputnik I. Science fiction, including the movies like <i>Forbidden Planet,</i> and those Saturday morning TV shows in the early 1950s that as a space-happy kid I remember vividly-- <i>Space Patrol,Tom Corbett, Space Cadet; Rocky Jones, Space Ranger-</i>-and even earlier, <i>Captain Video.</i><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_zfDAePlNlS_F9QxfsH7qe0j9RzD1DfyBaHBPvxkkNtz9BSM6CF4keD1XZvtReFgRsrnpypY6GIP7HFVaK5V6GoTtD6Q0EZt47mgCqBdBE2WKo1-CEKqHlcJ9UAvzRITtGAOv60cCv8UHiwLeP3RpCnMeBtRPztPqgdMKAk_kg3xgiGEEXQ/s1042/Man-in-space%20(1).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1042" data-original-width="750" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_zfDAePlNlS_F9QxfsH7qe0j9RzD1DfyBaHBPvxkkNtz9BSM6CF4keD1XZvtReFgRsrnpypY6GIP7HFVaK5V6GoTtD6Q0EZt47mgCqBdBE2WKo1-CEKqHlcJ9UAvzRITtGAOv60cCv8UHiwLeP3RpCnMeBtRPztPqgdMKAk_kg3xgiGEEXQ/s320/Man-in-space%20(1).jpg" width="230" /></a></div>But the authors emphasize the speculations and artistic rendering in the popular press in the 1950s (notably Collier's Magazine) and particularly the three programs produced by Walt Disney for the Disneyland anthology, beginning with "Man in Space." They made humans in space dramatic and real.</div><div><br /></div><div>Walt Disney took space travel seriously, and he was personally involved in the research for these television programs. The company had a bit of experience in this kind of program, having produced "Victory Through Air Power," a 1942 film based on a book advocating a large role for air power in the Second World War, said to have influenced Winston Churchill, and through him, FDR. But these first Tomorrowland programs were ahead of their time. They discussed details of rocketry, space and space travel that most Americans didn't know, let alone children in the audience.</div><div><br />
<b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omWRxonewL4">"Man in Space"</a> </b>was first of the series. The second, "Man on the Moon" was also broadcast before even a human-made satellite reached space. (And even though "man" was used in its general sense as "human," it pretty much was just men in space. Though the Russians sent the first woman into orbit in 1963, none of the US programs before the shuttle had women astronauts.)<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Only the third program in the series, "Mars and Beyond," was broadcast after Sputnik, by about two months. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">These were first seen in black and white, but shot in color. Color illustrations were lifted for books and magazine articles derived from the show.</span></div><div>
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"Man in Space" is introduced by Walt Disney, who refers to space as "the new frontier" (JFK's campaign slogan in 1960 became The New Frontier.) The bulk of the program is a history of rocketry and animated illustrations of possible perils of humans in space, introducing the concept of weightlessness. Rocketry pioneer Willy Ley is among those who explain various concepts.</div><div><br /></div><div>Some of the rocketry history sacrifices accuracy for the sake of humor, but explanations of how rockets work and what might happen in space were new to most of the audience (and helped govern depictions of space trips in subsequent fiction films.) I remember in particular that this is where I learned Newton's third law of motion, which as this film put it means "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." It's still just about all the physics I know.</div><div>
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The history of rocketry leads up to the V-2, the last German rocket built in World War II. Several blast-offs of this handsome rocket are shown, probably launches of some of the 75 V-2s the US captured and brought back after the war to essentially create the US rocket program. Many launches of a dazzling array of differently designed rockets follow.<br />
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Not once however is it mentioned that the V-2 was used to rain terror and destruction down on England. V-2 meant "Vengeance Weapon 2" in retaliation for the Allied bombing of Berlin and other population centers. Over 3,000 were launched against Allied targets, mostly London, killing some 9,000 people. Some 12,000 people died in forced labor camps making these rockets.<br />
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The London Blitz at first consisted of attack by German bombers, and then the V-1 rockets. Londoners learned to listen for the V-1 and for the silence after the motors cut out--if it sounded close, then the bomb was apt to fall nearby. The V-2 however was supersonic--the bomb arrived before the sound was heard, making it even more of a terror weapon. In Thomas Pynchon's famous novel <i>Gravity's Rainbow </i>set in London during the V-2 bombing, one of the characters seems to have precognition of where the bombs will land.<br />
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The reason for the Disney film's silence on the uses of the V-2 was simple: Wernher von Braun was one of the chief German scientists who designed the V-2 but by 1955 he was working for the US government on its military rocket programs. And about a half hour into the 49 minutes of this show, he appeared on camera to explain his design for the rocket that would take Americans into space.<br />
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Then comes the animated first launch of man into space. The style is hyper-realistic, with a dramatic music score. It's only about ten minutes but for me it was unforgettable. (The illustration at the top is from this segment.)<br />
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In broad outlines, it does predict what the launches were like that I later watched avidly on TV, from the first Explorer satellite launch through Mercury and Apollo manned launches. But a lot of very big details were off. Von Braun was way too ambitious--he has a four stage rocket topped by a winged aircraft to return the 6-man crew to this "isolated atoll in the Pacific." The first Russian and US spaceflights were three stages and had crews of one. US Gemini had two, and Apollo three. The Disney animation also made it a night launch, which was more dramatic, but there wasn't a US night launch until deep into the Apollo program.<br />
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Probably the funniest detail for those who watched the real launches is that the crew on the Disney program wasn't taken to the rocket until 20 minutes before launch. Watching the real launches I recall those poor astronauts sitting strapped-in for hour after hour, through the long countdowns, through launch holds and scrubbed missions.<br />
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"Man in Space" was directed by Disney animator Ward Kimball, who also appeared as a kind of host (as he would at times in the following two programs.) The voice-over narrator is Dick Tufeld, familiar from lots of Disney productions but also as the voice of the robot in <i>Lost in Space (Danger Will Robinson!)</i> on TV in the 60s (and later reprised on <i>The Simpsons.</i>)<br />
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<b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZImSTxbglI">"Man in the Moon"</a> </b>was first broadcast midway through the second season on December 28, 1955. It starts with animation illustrating the human conception of the moon throughout history, narrated (as is the rest of the film) by Hans Conreid, a famous face as well as voice of the 50s and 60s, frequently in Disney productions.<br />
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From a fanciful history of stories the program moves onto the science. It's unfortunately noticeable now how casually Walt Disney himself mentions that the universe is at least 4 billion years old. A mention like that (though with a larger number) in the 2014 version of the <i>Cosmos </i>series was loudly attacked by fundamentalists, but in 1955 this caused no controversy. In a program built on science, it was perfectly natural.<br />
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The basic astral mechanics and the then-current knowledge about the solar system is well told with animation of various kinds, though details like the number of moons of the outer planets are now far out of date. <br />
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Then von Braun appears again to talk about the process of a human voyage to the moon. Again he's thinking very big, ultimately about a craft that carries ten. But a major part of this process is the construction of a space station, as an embarkation point for the huge moon-bound craft. The space station itself is immense--much larger than today's International Space Station. And it is in the now classic shape of the wheel.<br />
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The circular space station with a hub in the center and spokes to the sides was already becoming a space travel icon, in science fiction novels like Arthur C. Clarke's <i>Islands in the Sky</i>, published in 1952 as part of the Winston series of juvenile s/f novels, or in films and TV shows like <i>Rocky Jones, Space Ranger</i> (1954),<i> </i>culminating in Kubrick's <i>2001: A Space Odyssey (</i>1968.)<br />
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It's not surprising that von Braun would gravitate towards the space wheel, for according to Sam Moskowitz's s/f history <i>Explorers of the Infinite</i>, its first appearance was in a novel by German writer Kurd Lasswitz in 1897, which was republished many times well into the 1940s at least. Several aspects of von Braun's design are descendants of concepts published by German scientist Hermann Oberth in 1923. An Austrian writer named Noordung and two German scientists named von Pirquet and Gail pioneered other ideas adapted into this design, including how the crew would live on the space station, all decades earlier. It's likely von Braun would have been aware of all of these as he worked on the German rocket program. To these concepts Von Braun added an atomic power plant. <br />
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The dramatization of the actual voyage from the station to the moon is the most elaborate of the series. It involves animation but also models, and live actors and sets. The models and sets are particularly interesting--the spacecraft are all white, while the interiors favor primary colors. It's all surprisingly 1960s Trek-like.<br />
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The technology however is dated to the point of nostalgia. The on-board computer for instance gives a new meaning to "dial-up." There's a little drama aboard when a micro-meteor hits a fuel line and a space walk is necessary. The craft doesn't attempt to land (as the first Apollo didn't) but does a single orbit. There's a little s/f involved when it crosses the dark side of the moon and launches flares to reveal unusual surface features at right angles, perhaps suggesting built structures, but nothing is said about it and the moment passes.<br />
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<b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEg7dF5rg8Y">Mars and Beyond </a></b>was first broadcast on December 4, 1957. It's narrated by Paul Frees, an actor who did a lot of voice-over work for many decades (he was everybody from the unseen millionaire on <i>The Millionaire</i> to Boris Badenov on <i>Rocky and Bullwinkle.) </i>His most prominent s/f appearance was in the 1953 George Pal version of <i>The War of the Worlds: </i>he was the first of the narrators, and played a role as a radio announcer. As this program begins he seems to be trying to sound like Orson Welles, but by the end he's using the portentous voice he employed when talking about Mars in <i>The War of the Worlds</i>.<br />
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This show begins with animation about human conceptions of the nature of the stars and the cosmos and life on other planets. The concepts are often so weird that the animation gets wildly creative. At times it seems very Cubist, as if Picasso is the strangest thing the animators could think of. There are also suggestions of such later animations as <i>Yellow Submarine.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
To suggest the variety of possibilities for life on other planets, the show tells the story of Earth's own history, from carbon atoms to proteins to organic compounds in the primordial sea. "Now with time as the main ingredient the evolution of life is inevitable." Visually arresting enough for children, the script is surprisingly sophisticated and eloquent. While the accompanying images sometimes go off on playful tangents, the narration is carefully scientific. Again, it's sad to compare what was uncontroversial for a family audience in 1957 compared to the regressiveness of today.<br />
<br />
The program's attention finally turns to Mars, and the question of whether humans could exist there--a question, the narration states, that arises because of human overpopulation and depletion of resources on Earth. This is 1957! (Which is getting close to the time that the correlation between fossil fuel burning, higher CO2 in the atmosphere and the warming of the global temperature is being determined.) <br />
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There's also the question of what kind of life could exist on Mars. Some of the forms discussed are silicon based lifeforms, and creatures that eat through rock. Years later, similar creatures would appear in one of Star Trek's best known stories.<br />
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There's talk of fuels and drives for the Mars spaceship. Someone with a firmer grasp of propulsion will have to check me but I think one they describe is the equivalent of the ion drive that also appears in science fiction. In any case, the von Braun design is atomic-powered. It has a big circular dish at the top and a kind of airplane-looking landing craft underneath. <br />
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This is a much briefer depiction of a trip of a six ship convoy, beginning at the space station (which we've seen in animation being built) and ending with speculation as to what the craft will find on the surface (though a planet totally devoid of life isn't among the speculated possibilities).<br />
<br />
The "beyond" part is briefer still, as a flying saucer--apparently of advanced electro-magnetic drive to neutralize gravity--zips off towards the infinite, looking like the opening of <i>Forbidden Planet</i> (or perhaps the end of <i>The Day the Earth Stood Still</i>) with small saucers disappearing into the belly of a much larger mothership (<i>This Island Earth</i> to <i>Close Encounters of the Third Kind</i>.)<br />
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This is the spaciest of the series, with imagery that suggests some of the wilder parts of <i>2001</i> a decade later (which maybe why they didn't surprise me?) It also has the most eloquent script. Its description of the possible lifeforms on Mars is the most imaginative I've ever seen illustrated. Think of what they could have done with the tools of today.<br />
<br />
The function of this series at the time was to excite the imagination while showing through scientific explanation that these age-old dreams of exploring outer space, the moon and Mars were within the realm of possibility in the near future. And as it turned out, with some modifications, some of them were. <br />
<br />
Yet something about these programs apparently transcended their time, for they continued to play fairly often on the Disney Channel into the 21st century, long after most of their speculations became obsolete. I was certainly thrilled by them when they first appeared. Then I got to see the real thing--the first years of the U.S. space program, broadcast live on the commercial networks.</div><div><br /></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><i><b>Adventureland</b></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij1GUZAR1v2W04Ot0ruyZFIaE3wEO3XYVJ_rgoYPKvygY-9yZYmwzTZEDaOxW4aAyxFI63I1eg73qq4wWg08vasVbR3CBg5a1XLByioV6Tkm6SAiXwfF8HVBuVQkmuM50S6QuX-_UYzWJBF0fNnvWf49ew3vQDGt-SbG3b1SrDQcQVRxuxcA/s259/download.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij1GUZAR1v2W04Ot0ruyZFIaE3wEO3XYVJ_rgoYPKvygY-9yZYmwzTZEDaOxW4aAyxFI63I1eg73qq4wWg08vasVbR3CBg5a1XLByioV6Tkm6SAiXwfF8HVBuVQkmuM50S6QuX-_UYzWJBF0fNnvWf49ew3vQDGt-SbG3b1SrDQcQVRxuxcA/s1600/download.jpg" width="259" /></a></div> Many of the early episodes of the Disneyland series were
under the heading of Adventureland: “Nature’s own realm.” Once again, Disney made liberal use of prior
motion picture footage. Along with his
first forays into scripted live action in his company’s lean years after World
War II, Disney experimented with a series of seven half-hour “True-Life
Adventures” nature films, beginning in 1948.
He later ran these on Disneyland, accompanied by newer (and not always
related) material.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The first of these (“Seal Island”) comprised half of the
third episode of Disneyland in 1954.
The 1950 “Beaver Valley” was half of episode 10, and 1951’s “Nature’s
Half Acre” was half of episode 16 in February 1955. The last short feature in 1953, on the Everglades, was seen in
the second episode of the second season.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> After that, between 1953 and 1960, Disney made seven
full-length nature films, and pieces of them appeared in the TV anthology—in
later years, before they were released to theatres.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioTnB69ak3jDp8PSJwONaLSRyktkeHRDphEnIP7OeBI_q4ZgfVTaP4O2G2NCDlF_-SNhdocUYOACYlzOqjmo6F_P__Oe6ua0zLoKP5uR0L0aFr0GPAHu8PDTWW1Wy_GT7Io-a2HC8MEoSNSvJzQt8CtGPpnOj9dHe52Vf3J0SMOvSHOJAD0A/s600/5945ac8fa81e3674424d34c3e4c18236--louie-schwartzberg-disney-love.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="317" data-original-width="600" height="169" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioTnB69ak3jDp8PSJwONaLSRyktkeHRDphEnIP7OeBI_q4ZgfVTaP4O2G2NCDlF_-SNhdocUYOACYlzOqjmo6F_P__Oe6ua0zLoKP5uR0L0aFr0GPAHu8PDTWW1Wy_GT7Io-a2HC8MEoSNSvJzQt8CtGPpnOj9dHe52Vf3J0SMOvSHOJAD0A/s320/5945ac8fa81e3674424d34c3e4c18236--louie-schwartzberg-disney-love.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> On the plus side, Disney pioneered the use of time-lapse
photography, which could show the entire lifecycle of plants or insects, and
slow motion photography, which isolated delicate moments in the flight of bees
and hummingbirds, for instance.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> But the Disney business was narrative, and the emphasis was
often on conflict. Predators and prey, or male animals clashing in the mating
season, had the action to keep viewers watching. While it’s true that a lot of activity in the wild is along the
theme of eating and being eaten, emphasis on predator/prey scenes also
unfortunately supported the standard metaphor of nature as constant warfare,
“survival of the fittest” in the grossest sense. The more subtle elements of survival, such as cooperation,
learning, sharing and negotiation, aren't fast enough to be considered watchable,
although these films sometimes did patch together narratives out of less
violent behaviors. Also unfortunately, like other nature films of the time,
events were sometimes staged, using trained animals in artificial
circumstances. </p><p class="MsoNormal">I grew up climbing trees. We weren't out in the country, but there was plenty of life around us--especially small creatures, from rabbits and squirrels on down. So even though these
were far from my favorite episodes, I was sometimes fascinated, for the camera
captured a lot of what I could not otherwise witness. I don't recall specifics, but these probably contributed to my later interest in ecology. For me, futuristic technology and space travel, and the importance of environment and the agency of all life on earth, were not contradictory interests or concerns. Tomorrowland and Adventureland coexisted, along with history (Frontierland) and Fantasyland. In these early days for me, they were all part of the world, as they remain. Perhaps in at least a partial way I have the <i>Disneyland</i> anthology to thank for that point of view.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><b> Disney, TV and Reading</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5ASnLdDTdWnGpsioVKbHAorZ7wmOQPoMxHb6Ca0lssAB7b0Om7q_SYTysrzFOM3zbGiQOz0cYfAK3d3ZOvAvZehU4grUGM_egTrK2GZJhE9zTY2uqdtWwXudapsCQuGfWmOBGLCI0UPKibP2jRoYQ-7xZOX6xVMt_KoBjHdg4DPu325Zl0w/s225/images.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5ASnLdDTdWnGpsioVKbHAorZ7wmOQPoMxHb6Ca0lssAB7b0Om7q_SYTysrzFOM3zbGiQOz0cYfAK3d3ZOvAvZehU4grUGM_egTrK2GZJhE9zTY2uqdtWwXudapsCQuGfWmOBGLCI0UPKibP2jRoYQ-7xZOX6xVMt_KoBjHdg4DPu325Zl0w/s1600/images.jpg" width="225" /></a></div> The rise of television in the lives of my Baby Boomer
generation was accompanied by outcries from parental and religious groups, and
decried by educators. Congressional
hearings were held on violence in programs with young audiences, and supposed vision
experts were seriously concerned about the fate of our eyes. Educators worried about addictive and
mindless content seducing us from our homework, and were afraid the constant
parade of imagery was ruining our capacity to read.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> They weren’t entirely wrong about some of that, especially about reading. It would be another decade before Marshall
McLuhan became famous for detailing how different television is from
print. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Did TV images themselves discourage reading? Probably to some extent. It was easier to be stimulated--to get revved up--by TV, regardless of content. We read the moving images of TV at a faster rhythm that made slowing down to read words more difficult. The time spent watching TV that
previous generations may have spent reading was probably also a potent factor,
as well as TV’s seductiveness.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfkgy-TFYU9nh-M-dxUTK2glIwmPywICFHHxXjSTeHEtG_gY5_Eu37Fc7Yv7lBQWLvagAppp7iFj37jhizs-esHT1eWyJx1havxiOaLbxb1OZjh85IkQOSz28oK5cN32eaVQoOgqBORGM0fwe78jSSqsgx9qmfb572UNzIH_KbL4MgkwvKyw/s980/1947%20Elbow%20Tax%20Ajax.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="699" data-original-width="980" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfkgy-TFYU9nh-M-dxUTK2glIwmPywICFHHxXjSTeHEtG_gY5_Eu37Fc7Yv7lBQWLvagAppp7iFj37jhizs-esHT1eWyJx1havxiOaLbxb1OZjh85IkQOSz28oK5cN32eaVQoOgqBORGM0fwe78jSSqsgx9qmfb572UNzIH_KbL4MgkwvKyw/s320/1947%20Elbow%20Tax%20Ajax.png" width="320" /></a></div> The Internet is known for slicing and dicing the
contemporary attention span, but long before the first emoji there was
television, charged with decimating our concentration. I’ve always maintained that attention spans
were shortened then, not so much by anything inherent in television, but by the bright distractions of
television commercials. Even in the
1950s, when there were fewer commercials and less of a TV hour devoted to them, and they were not so abruptly thrown in, they still distracted and disrupted attention to the narrative, with cumulative effects.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Attention spans in childhood are already limited, however. Perhaps I was slow on the uptake, but even though I was reading books from the
library by the time I was 10, I was still having trouble stretching my
attention through a long novel in high school.
There were of course books I couldn’t stop reading. But some books stimulated me so much I
couldn’t keep reading them, while others made me sleepy, or I just got lost, even if I was interested.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Television was not alone in making books sometimes seem like a foreign
country: exotic and beckoning perhaps, but confusing, hard to understand, and
intimidating. So sometimes an entry point, or perhaps a bridge, was needed to
get into the book and its reality. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> Written stories,
oral tales, are themselves bridges to many of Disney’s best-known
animations. But sometimes the Disney
version encourages going back across that bridge to the source. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvDGkHE6xGZAx0ezUYjnsRSSGmJoOTi6NmFhME2Qd6hFN05qs_nsk6DXzoOGI_DqaiU5MiW1JDENCls3clrcR-XHNnbFBiwu3wbWh4hPWhXU-79eVhiOzhzBLpUSAoldm--Mih3c_MZd3FQySUIxjULfhgRH-AuNVKsxtAGCEOVgxwNIQlyA/s460/47.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="460" data-original-width="304" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvDGkHE6xGZAx0ezUYjnsRSSGmJoOTi6NmFhME2Qd6hFN05qs_nsk6DXzoOGI_DqaiU5MiW1JDENCls3clrcR-XHNnbFBiwu3wbWh4hPWhXU-79eVhiOzhzBLpUSAoldm--Mih3c_MZd3FQySUIxjULfhgRH-AuNVKsxtAGCEOVgxwNIQlyA/w211-h320/47.jpg" width="211" /></a></div>For example, I knew
the basic story of Alice in Wonderland before seeing the Disney version, though I was too young to read the Lewis Carroll book at that time. Having some confidence from knowing the Disney version, I must have read it a few years later —all I
can remember is coming to the end of it and the thrill of seeing that there was
yet another Alice story to read, <i>Through the Looking Glass</i>.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> As I mentioned in the post previous to this one in this
series, I probably had an interest in the American Revolution from reading
about it, before I saw Disney’s <i>Johnny Tremain</i>. But that story inspired further reading,
probably including a stab at the source novel, <i>Johnny Tremain</i> by Esther
Forbes, from the public library. I
don’t specifically recall reading it, though, and a more recent reading
suggests why: the novel involves a much more complicated story, that goes on
past the events in the movie. I may not
have had the attention span for all of it yet. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBthwhCa9dtw9uJp5Q3UCp0HylWHyDj696Ep41mMA4JNuN9A-D_N2xFciUr84z1bM_QEaJPEt3vyI4RthjfQueVHdRdCutzfKCkBjWohM0P5Dh6m02em7rlFHgkUR6bOlzOk4oncEdych-1uu-Z76YPMwyGu0wBTnLNRjDTx4K7xoX6nqyGQ/s896/1072421.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="896" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBthwhCa9dtw9uJp5Q3UCp0HylWHyDj696Ep41mMA4JNuN9A-D_N2xFciUr84z1bM_QEaJPEt3vyI4RthjfQueVHdRdCutzfKCkBjWohM0P5Dh6m02em7rlFHgkUR6bOlzOk4oncEdych-1uu-Z76YPMwyGu0wBTnLNRjDTx4K7xoX6nqyGQ/s320/1072421.jpg" width="214" /></a></div>Sometimes it took awhile before I was ready to walk over the
bridge. From Disney’s <i>20,000 Leagues
Under the Sea,</i> I knew the name of Jules Verne, and the success of that
movie led to others made from Verne stories that I saw at Saturday
matinees. Actually reading Verne
required yet another bridge: the Classics Illustrated comic books. The first one I read was I believe the first
one ever, the cover of which I remember vividly: it was <i>From the Earth to
the Moon</i>. (It looks like a 1950s rocketship but it's actually more of a bullet.)<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The only Disney product I definitely remember leading
directly to reading was not from the Disneyland anthology but another
series. I was a bit too old for the <i>Mickey
Mouse Club</i>, but my younger sister Kathy watched it every afternoon, so I might see some of it in passing on the living room TV, still the only one in the house. One day I noticed a filmed story
beginning within the <i>Mickey Mouse Club</i> show, about two boy detectives,
Frank and Joe Hardy. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTnXN2hAsPwzKsJ6JfWtqZ2wNZ-Q-quPrKUzKKe5Rr_-tfLh5cix1eY3_mOGi9L5PEfTvrRNQFMf5WJFeI0SxF7yAc1O3Q4zqNEfqfSSCFoaRAvl19S8VZiCXuwv1g567zJSgLgQcka5s9zHDYMmoAUtQfhSkYyKeaUTqFfnhmPOQhnaSneg/s656/hardyboysapplegate.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="656" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTnXN2hAsPwzKsJ6JfWtqZ2wNZ-Q-quPrKUzKKe5Rr_-tfLh5cix1eY3_mOGi9L5PEfTvrRNQFMf5WJFeI0SxF7yAc1O3Q4zqNEfqfSSCFoaRAvl19S8VZiCXuwv1g567zJSgLgQcka5s9zHDYMmoAUtQfhSkYyKeaUTqFfnhmPOQhnaSneg/s320/hardyboysapplegate.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>The story, called “The Mystery of the Applegate Treasure,”
was based on the first novel in the Hardy Boys series, <i>The Tower Treasure </i>(though
it also borrowed elements from #36: <i>The Secret of Pirate Hill</i>.) The serial, starring Tim Considine and Tommy
Kirk (both appeared in many other Disney stories) was broadcast in October
1956, every day for 19 episodes of fifteen minutes each. I was completely
smitten.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> I asked my sister to alert me if there was another Hardy
Boys story (there was and she did: “The Mystery of Ghost Farm” was broadcast in 12 segments the following year. It begins with the beginning of #2 of the novels, <i>The
House on the Cliffs,</i> but quickly diverges.)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho7f5z7AJVs32wqgKp_W457mE2V2zGVCE25tgKVDkRUNlvRKST7S080mARaucJt4A4tUQuLgu3tSlKxbWDF7dWHLJe0_XBakiS3DFmHrR5zWlEyH_QLL9nfWQOMveSD1ShKRbEjQcLsBUSLdEbWH01yHtAvPDZOPWkXUUevDSOAK7NAZI_Zg/s340/hardyboysbooks.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="340" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho7f5z7AJVs32wqgKp_W457mE2V2zGVCE25tgKVDkRUNlvRKST7S080mARaucJt4A4tUQuLgu3tSlKxbWDF7dWHLJe0_XBakiS3DFmHrR5zWlEyH_QLL9nfWQOMveSD1ShKRbEjQcLsBUSLdEbWH01yHtAvPDZOPWkXUUevDSOAK7NAZI_Zg/s320/hardyboysbooks.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> Meanwhile, I discovered the Hardy Boys series of books, and hit the public library for whatever was available at the moment, for they had other readers. These were the originals, the series that ran from 1927 into the
1950s, before the first 38 were revised (and many ruined) in 1959. As library books they were without the dust
jackets but with the brown letters on light brown covers. I wrote about them<a href="http://dreamingup.blogspot.com/2017/09/library-days-hardy-boys.htm"> in detail</a> in my “History
of My Reading” series.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> This bridge relationship of TV shows to books continued for
the rest of my life so far. Just a few
years ago, when I undertook to read Charles Dickens <i>Bleak House</i>—all
875 paperback pages—I did so after having seen the 2005 BBC miniseries, and I
borrowed the DVDs from the university library to watch after I’d read the
appropriate chapters, to make sure I had the characters and action straight in
my mind. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The theme of such bridges will recur in this series, which
now moves on beyond shows for children to other 1950s TV forms, beginning with the
variety show.</p></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-49465474543508147842022-05-12T22:23:00.007-07:002023-05-28T22:10:48.797-07:00TV and Me: Disney (Part 2) The Crockett Grin<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS5tjKIu35t5PR8_BliIQHQ-IYd-4XsWdjy5CNsXgu_n2zjOewJZdQpBcW2hncgepqUKW5Yx1_zZYmpLzre__PaaygKVrgcEviPJ1WKC3gmFSij1Zuf73PHqkdPVAdgOXJoVfUHDP3q6wb6Bnna92xeeFHxg9t5BnXoOnXPMXQGVZsYm4Bx2Y/s1344/crockettbw01.bmp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1344" data-original-width="1120" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS5tjKIu35t5PR8_BliIQHQ-IYd-4XsWdjy5CNsXgu_n2zjOewJZdQpBcW2hncgepqUKW5Yx1_zZYmpLzre__PaaygKVrgcEviPJ1WKC3gmFSij1Zuf73PHqkdPVAdgOXJoVfUHDP3q6wb6Bnna92xeeFHxg9t5BnXoOnXPMXQGVZsYm4Bx2Y/w334-h400/crockettbw01.bmp" width="334" /></a></div><br /> <i>TV and I grew up together. This is our story. Eighth in a <a href="http://bluevoice.blogspot.com/search/label/TV%20and%20Me">series</a>.</i><p></p><p>Once he’d made several animated feature films, Walt Disney
wanted to try live action features.
World War II intervened, but at the same time, unexpectedly gave him the
impetus and means to make his first live action films immediately after the
war.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The financial success of Disney animated films depended on
the addition of international audiences, particularly in Europe. Once the war started, his movies couldn’t be
shown in the battlefield that was western Europe, except in England, where they
became a cherished relief from the war. But the British government impounded
the profits until war’s end, and even then, Disney could spend that money only
in the UK. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPFepfibxb-Qc1s_zc_CS6VU2FdgRBOWn9PxdCpd-Juwq2uX1fu3vtX9r8CMHIwtbVy74Qnf1tkxqa4YoNqqE3hHK4bU11U1LY3vP7IP7pmA1Rfjii_k1Q8YXLQyNF2o01JlbRmrscetqPxNTsJBQJ5eNhqBfIUDACx1rQU5SrkYe3UehBic8/s1745/rob%20roy.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1745" data-original-width="1465" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPFepfibxb-Qc1s_zc_CS6VU2FdgRBOWn9PxdCpd-Juwq2uX1fu3vtX9r8CMHIwtbVy74Qnf1tkxqa4YoNqqE3hHK4bU11U1LY3vP7IP7pmA1Rfjii_k1Q8YXLQyNF2o01JlbRmrscetqPxNTsJBQJ5eNhqBfIUDACx1rQU5SrkYe3UehBic8/s320/rob%20roy.jpg" width="269" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Richard Todd, Glynis John in Rob Roy</td></tr></tbody></table>So the Disney Studios used those funds to make their first
live action films in England. Just as
his animated features mostly adapted well-known fairy tales and other existing
stories, Disney chose classic British adventures for these movies. His first was a live action version of
Robert Louis Stevenson’s <i>Treasure Island</i>, released in 1950. It was followed by <i>The Story of Robin
Hood</i> (1952), and in 1953, <i>The Sword and the Rose </i>(an Arthurian era
story about knights) and <i>Rob Roy, the Highland Rogue</i>.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> These theatrical films all were presented on <i>Disneyland</i>,
as Disney’s anthology TV show was called in 1954. They were all divided into
two hour-long shows (with Walt Disney providing historical and other
background) on consecutive weeks.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> <i>Treasure Island</i>
appeared in two parts in January 1955, during the show’s first season<i>. Robin Hood </i>was shown in the second season, during November 1955. The following January (1956), <i>The Sword
and the Rose</i> appeared under the original title of its source book, “When
Knighthood Was In Flower.” <i>Rob Roy</i>
got the two successive episodes treatment that October, early in the third
season.</p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_p8JUe5pZFXlZfW2iGGDMJKa8qvCxdqv8k8xsBJcv_aJCn1Q4kyddik8p8L7TkyBIH3HuA9ISG2yYwfpJRn5kltCpl1biT2-jRjrikB00Y78uo28OE6eFjpzaI7t3oO2lREj48-FVaV85eMjpE5eKEonTf6cLd-7h2j71p9V5LDuiUeHrmVY/s350/the-story-of-robin-hood-and-his-merrie-men-1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="197" data-original-width="350" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_p8JUe5pZFXlZfW2iGGDMJKa8qvCxdqv8k8xsBJcv_aJCn1Q4kyddik8p8L7TkyBIH3HuA9ISG2yYwfpJRn5kltCpl1biT2-jRjrikB00Y78uo28OE6eFjpzaI7t3oO2lREj48-FVaV85eMjpE5eKEonTf6cLd-7h2j71p9V5LDuiUeHrmVY/s320/the-story-of-robin-hood-and-his-merrie-men-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> I remember <i>Robin Hood</i> the best. Richard Todd played
Robin as a young energetic upstart (a yeoman rather than a noble.) This Disney movie has the distinction of
being the only version of Robin Hood to have filmed in the actual Sherwood
Forest. I may have seen it before I saw
the Richard Greene TV series.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <i>Knighthood</i> and <i>Rob Roy</i> kind of blended into<i>
Robin Hood,</i> since they also starred Richard Todd. I remember his romantic interest in <i>Knighthood</i>, Glynis
Johns –I’m now surprised to see she wasn’t Maid Marian. She was however, the
female lead in <i>Rob Roy</i>. With her distinctive voice and gaze, she had a
long career in British and Hollywood films. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu0uMcNmtz9GRg7urkpDwlEBXzStcqRy1s6hP_BZouCnPD-9gcsiMjjQZERT2N1ty6RiK1WjEPoslObrerX3UsO1U_QKCGvSjt7i94BOyycMSUFrS4aU-P2-Uo614Gp11kDxTmqN_ESAbtDzpQU6FZXu5VJAC82SYWRKanntIuGagaZecuiak/s558/treasureis01.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="410" data-original-width="558" height="147" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu0uMcNmtz9GRg7urkpDwlEBXzStcqRy1s6hP_BZouCnPD-9gcsiMjjQZERT2N1ty6RiK1WjEPoslObrerX3UsO1U_QKCGvSjt7i94BOyycMSUFrS4aU-P2-Uo614Gp11kDxTmqN_ESAbtDzpQU6FZXu5VJAC82SYWRKanntIuGagaZecuiak/w200-h147/treasureis01.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>On the other hand, I didn’t take to <i>Treasure Island</i>. I found Long John Silver (memorably played
by Robert Newton) uncomfortably scary, especially in his relationship with Jim
Hawkins, a boy more or less my age (Bobby Driscoll again.) (For reference, I was eight when <i>Disneyland</i>
went on the air in 1954.)<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> With these modest successes accomplished, Disney began his
first big budget Hollywood live action film, <i>20,000 Leagues Under the Sea</i>,
based on the novel by Jules Verne. He
assembled a Hollywood cast, though lesser stars who were also good actors:
James Mason, Peter Lorre and the up-and-coming young Kirk Douglas. Except for Douglas, the cast and production
had a European flair, perhaps a transition from the English films.</p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge6hTueeL5o91y7mS0od8PSwzhdpWFffgZThJ7b8RXmzRlO-GFTG5zv8pP8Gp6KBJ0GD4jm3hyYw9u-Z8OPXWq6cIqc4ryjo0Y1qiV8_KD8K_Pxy-Vtv6FQWRtjl850XjCubdH-mxwusjA5Sx0Bedpnre3fErw5mIBGHsULQJ95HNHslqy9EA/s1280/20000-leagues-under-the-sea-1954-still-2.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge6hTueeL5o91y7mS0od8PSwzhdpWFffgZThJ7b8RXmzRlO-GFTG5zv8pP8Gp6KBJ0GD4jm3hyYw9u-Z8OPXWq6cIqc4ryjo0Y1qiV8_KD8K_Pxy-Vtv6FQWRtjl850XjCubdH-mxwusjA5Sx0Bedpnre3fErw5mIBGHsULQJ95HNHslqy9EA/s320/20000-leagues-under-the-sea-1954-still-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>It turned out to be a highly ambitious film, with Disney
facing technical challenges as he did with his first animated features. This one required underwater photography in
only the second Cinemascope movie ever made.
Even the diving equipment necessitated technical innovations. Disney built a live action studio for this
movie, and with the special effects and location shoots, it quickly became the
most expensive movie in Hollywood history to that time. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Financially stretched, the Disney Studios went all in to
make this film a success with a massive ad campaign. Not by coincidence, scenes
from <i>20,000 Leagues Under the Sea </i>were the focal point for the seventh
episode of the <i>Disneyland</i> TV show in December 1954, just weeks before
the movie’s release.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW04V61WK9jdxQp_-EjbG649wQ517PRPD5W1w6v0ItwNEMDH_MTfFEqFrlOgeooGCm0Rpygu_l-RxKd6arpiKB-oU7PzBgWIKArxZ8pItM870WlGdhgYDsBdLvvy2NN5lyiCY1tYpndzlb6iM6D7GsyPCmbpclci50HKabzjxz02Pp7HGkX2M/s512/20000%20leagues%20extras%20shot%203%20(2).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="289" data-original-width="512" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW04V61WK9jdxQp_-EjbG649wQ517PRPD5W1w6v0ItwNEMDH_MTfFEqFrlOgeooGCm0Rpygu_l-RxKd6arpiKB-oU7PzBgWIKArxZ8pItM870WlGdhgYDsBdLvvy2NN5lyiCY1tYpndzlb6iM6D7GsyPCmbpclci50HKabzjxz02Pp7HGkX2M/w400-h226/20000%20leagues%20extras%20shot%203%20(2).jpg" width="400" /></a></div> The most dramatic scene in the movie was a fight on the deck
of the Nautilus submarine with a mammoth Giant Squid. Fragments of it were featured in the TV hour. I recall Walt Disney explaining on this show
what a giant squid is, especially in contrast to an octopus; how it squirts
ink, and how it may have been the source of perennial tales about sea serpents.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Like most <i>Disneyland</i> episodes, this one was repeated
many times over the years. But it wasn’t until 1976 that the full movie (in
color) was shown on TV, after <i>Disneyland</i> moved to NBC and after a few
name changes to <i>The Wonderful World of Disney</i>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> </i><i>20,000 Leagues Under the Sea</i> did become a major
international hit. It was innovative
and influential, yet it is curiously forgotten. Part of the reason may be that it was immediately obscured by a
phenomenon unparalleled in television history—and in Hollywood history-- which
began the very next week after this seventh Disneyland episode, when the eighth
was broadcast on December 15, 1954: the first Frontierland show called “Davy Crockett, Indian Fighter.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf8T1Uu0aKGgCOPdgH0B-Ti3TnHTdvtHM9dNPLdmEtulbHHyQnszx2ehBsQCC88PRZQni8Wevzf6G4soUpn6uiUwbrPHQfzK1nrjAidVOZRccUvKVM7kK1CmBeXJuiEPV5oQJVvu3Um1JPM1B08XUbBhcq-TW2HgVJcTRVQrQne2zkto9T1bU/s1280/frontierland.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf8T1Uu0aKGgCOPdgH0B-Ti3TnHTdvtHM9dNPLdmEtulbHHyQnszx2ehBsQCC88PRZQni8Wevzf6G4soUpn6uiUwbrPHQfzK1nrjAidVOZRccUvKVM7kK1CmBeXJuiEPV5oQJVvu3Um1JPM1B08XUbBhcq-TW2HgVJcTRVQrQne2zkto9T1bU/s320/frontierland.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> Back for a moment to <i>20,000 Leagues Under the Sea</i>. Creating a working model for that giant squid, with working
tentacles and mouth, was a huge technical challenge. In fact the first version
failed so badly that a new model had to be designed and built, and the
elaborate scene re-shot at huge expense, forcing Disney to go begging to the
banks so he could finish the movie.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> So when Walt Disney heard that a new movie was opening that
featured giant ants with articulated limbs and mouth, he went to see it. (He
may also have been taking a look at one of the film’s leads, James Arness—not
yet the star of TV’s <i>Gunsmoke</i>.)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The giant ants in
the sci-fi horror film <i>Them</i>!—one of the first atomic monster
movies—didn’t impress him, and apparently neither did James Arness. But another
actor with one scene did. The studio
was preparing their first live action film specifically for <i>Disneyland</i>,
the TV show. It was based on the life
and legends of an early 19<sup>th</sup> century American folk hero, Davy
Crockett. But so far they didn’t have
anyone to play Crockett. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRxsoBmEE7oIIcxpwfHVNZpwFwQ6yRasH6AffFSlr2Wlg5W-dw8zGddKPqiTpbcEubnnJWr9H8c9atosIW_7nwANa1YRNTkfF53RAHkzQU5YkpWLLsw7mqFvEXtqjqs1dhhEHoMCBArgglTaOtYTx5GNeax8WwWOEtMOaxTCQzru39becOxI0/s749/1954-them-037-fess-parker-e1478380939712.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="464" data-original-width="749" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRxsoBmEE7oIIcxpwfHVNZpwFwQ6yRasH6AffFSlr2Wlg5W-dw8zGddKPqiTpbcEubnnJWr9H8c9atosIW_7nwANa1YRNTkfF53RAHkzQU5YkpWLLsw7mqFvEXtqjqs1dhhEHoMCBArgglTaOtYTx5GNeax8WwWOEtMOaxTCQzru39becOxI0/s320/1954-them-037-fess-parker-e1478380939712.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>In <i>Them!</i> Fess Parker played the pilot of a small
airplane who saw two winged giant queen ants flying along with him, and was
confined by officials, ostensibly as a psycho, but really because scientists
and the military (who at that point knew about the radiation-enlarged ants)
were on the lookout for such reports.
It’s a single scene, but Parker—tall, rangy, folksy and personable--
delivered lines and a performance with conviction and humor. Disney had found his frontier hero.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgibskYwydD7p0YWPdl6UqxxUsDgmXT4XiFgrCWk_FSFGRyUiOIFN42Da-QBd-j2sxVlFG0S5qYMNcyuLnmn9AV3ge6deNjSaY5fyggfAyY7GZgEHez1wbOMepfrUXGKAfageKt1q0FWZaZi0_io_Vij2cDre0TzVZr7N2SZcRIxRZmkZ_h-30/s736/disney%20in%20blue.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="551" data-original-width="736" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgibskYwydD7p0YWPdl6UqxxUsDgmXT4XiFgrCWk_FSFGRyUiOIFN42Da-QBd-j2sxVlFG0S5qYMNcyuLnmn9AV3ge6deNjSaY5fyggfAyY7GZgEHez1wbOMepfrUXGKAfageKt1q0FWZaZi0_io_Vij2cDre0TzVZr7N2SZcRIxRZmkZ_h-30/w200-h150/disney%20in%20blue.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>In his first leading role, Fess Parker was paired with
Hollywood veteran Buddy Ebsen (starting out as a loose-limbed dancer, he was cast
as the Tin Man in <i>The Wizard of Oz</i> until the makeup made him seriously
ill) as Crockett’s companion, Georgie Russel.
It was a quick, low budget television production, except that Disney
paid extra to film it in Technicolor, as he did most of his shows, looking
forward to color TV. (Which is why Walt almost always appeared in a blue
suit—it filmed best for both black and white and for color.) <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXBqD0oIK_L2VUTSrJcxFL_4SCihZ4U4x97z1S_xMAe8JJkLNjLSr7v90LE5V-9u1DWhmsELOxMRzpp2zVzK_gCsBY3Hwgx6fv00Q4ThLPQw_RInJSypGP-gye-5Cl7sH_EDEFQhOl-RFXtSf8h-LnltJS0--veQllnqgE3zjXsRc5pvzU1tE/s368/critique-davy-crockett-roi-des-trappeurs-foster1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="368" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXBqD0oIK_L2VUTSrJcxFL_4SCihZ4U4x97z1S_xMAe8JJkLNjLSr7v90LE5V-9u1DWhmsELOxMRzpp2zVzK_gCsBY3Hwgx6fv00Q4ThLPQw_RInJSypGP-gye-5Cl7sH_EDEFQhOl-RFXtSf8h-LnltJS0--veQllnqgE3zjXsRc5pvzU1tE/s320/critique-davy-crockett-roi-des-trappeurs-foster1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>The first episode was shot on location in Tennessee, far
from Hollywood and its professional support, so both Parker and Ebsen had to do
most of their own stunts. Each day’s
filming was sent back to Disney Studios, so no one on the production knew how
it looked.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The Davy Crockett saga appeared in three hour-long
Disneyland shows, about a month apart, starting in December 1954. By the time the last episode aired in
February 1955, it was the biggest television phenomenon in history. Initial audience was estimated at 50
million. Disney repeated these episodes
in April and May. Eventually some 90
million viewers had watched it. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4PIiVwQFwYXcBYiLBLRbzSikpwc-Ar_FrNqa-x0N0tdeYM7BjEnBYSWBZHruGBA4WWWTfFaktAvmzY6IEjCIFHc7ySJFvp8Zk0drwonUBmcg86jrq0hradX-598xHjlsRxPUWD03Wxlzz6fTdkPScQbuD38L-rwoOH2Nh4q7PS41Op9N1PRk/s459/crockett-mint.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="406" data-original-width="459" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4PIiVwQFwYXcBYiLBLRbzSikpwc-Ar_FrNqa-x0N0tdeYM7BjEnBYSWBZHruGBA4WWWTfFaktAvmzY6IEjCIFHc7ySJFvp8Zk0drwonUBmcg86jrq0hradX-598xHjlsRxPUWD03Wxlzz6fTdkPScQbuD38L-rwoOH2Nh4q7PS41Op9N1PRk/s320/crockett-mint.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>The Davy Crockett craze revved up with the show’s signature
song, “The Ballad of Davy Crockett,” one version of which was the number one
record in America for 13 straight weeks.
This Bill Hayes recording ended up as the #6 song of 1955, and two other
versions (by Fess Parker and by Tennessee Ernie Ford) were also in the year’s
top 30, logging in at #22 and #26 respectively.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Just two months after the third episode was first re-run, a
movie edited from the TV episodes opened in theatres—in color (paying off
Disney’s gamble earlier than even he could expect.) It, too, was a hit—perhaps some solace to the perplexed in
Hollywood: TV could subtract from their week-to-week audiences, but in certain
cases it could also multiply. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The Crockett craze is also measured—and remembered-- in
merchandise. Disney, who pioneered the
merchandizing of characters with Mickey Mouse in the 1930s, was up to the
challenge, but since Davy Crockett was an historical character who couldn’t be
trademarked, a lot of others got in on the goldrush. It’s estimated that in just the first six months after the first
episode, $100 million in merchandise was sold (and this was in an era in which
the average annual wage in the US was under $5,000.) </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTzUZ2M4q_fjHsdro-Xjn9UJ9v8FJsvmwWv3hPIo1oiTlTH453zx3IKNQGuqrtF_1foscvMCBo8BSW2AkdM5TN4wvztRrBVKRBYeiHoKNuB32iHWnBKIxhpjY6S3owoEzv28A04sFHXAdZ4jAv7OdpyMIqb7AFHibNzrt_XkFK1DgEQoIZ2P0/s264/crockett03.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="191" data-original-width="264" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTzUZ2M4q_fjHsdro-Xjn9UJ9v8FJsvmwWv3hPIo1oiTlTH453zx3IKNQGuqrtF_1foscvMCBo8BSW2AkdM5TN4wvztRrBVKRBYeiHoKNuB32iHWnBKIxhpjY6S3owoEzv28A04sFHXAdZ4jAv7OdpyMIqb7AFHibNzrt_XkFK1DgEQoIZ2P0/s1600/crockett03.jpg" width="264" /></a></div>What was this all about?
Clearly, a lot of kids were already watching the <i>Disneyland</i> TV
show, and their enthusiasm spread. As
part of that initial audience of postwar Baby Boom kids—our numbers swelling
with each passing year until peaking later in the mid-1950s—I’m guessing we
were first attracted to the Crockett charm.
The first Crockett episode was also the first under the Frontierland
banner, which the narrator described as “tall tales and true from the legendary
past.” Crockett was a perfect blend of
“tall tales and true.” In our first
glimpse of him he emerges from some bushes where he had been experimenting on
subduing a bear by grinning at it. You
wouldn’t catch John Wayne trying something like that.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The rollicking theme tune added to that sense of fun. As
Davy, Fess Parker was a soft-spoken showman, who would soon prove to be an
unusual hero: after fighting a band of Creek Indians, he makes peace with them
in agreeing to guarantee they could live on their land. In the second episode he defends other
Indians from European-American predators, and storms out of Congress in protest
against a bill that broke the treaty he helped forge and took away Indian
land. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> We’d seen buckskins and fringe jackets in westerns before,
but not coonskin caps, and they became the rage. We all had to have one, and I
recall it was one of my first lessons in socio-economics: I understood that it
was the rich kids who wore the caps completely made of fur. The rest of us got leather-topped (or more likely, leathery plastic) caps with some
fur on the sides, and something like a tail, probably the $1.95 version from a
five-and-ten. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM2i7OghsyNfF6fOtLTby78Ib1azQbAIHuu0l_mDn6AZKvVMwTgq93qXuK3wfhoxSKtNO0icALv6Z6C_JSyp5uw0qecWVWN20RNW5GjXkI3fPczju8ucfiQVZmjPKSyzRSVhupmnDZ9iWwwraBUSBkw7k4uh47l_1zeILMF0x2WsecHyOm3y4/s248/davy%20crockett%20socks.jpg" style="clear: left; display: inline; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="180" data-original-width="248" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM2i7OghsyNfF6fOtLTby78Ib1azQbAIHuu0l_mDn6AZKvVMwTgq93qXuK3wfhoxSKtNO0icALv6Z6C_JSyp5uw0qecWVWN20RNW5GjXkI3fPczju8ucfiQVZmjPKSyzRSVhupmnDZ9iWwwraBUSBkw7k4uh47l_1zeILMF0x2WsecHyOm3y4/s1600/davy%20crockett%20socks.jpg" width="248" /></a><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The only other merchandise I remember having was a set of
socks with Davy Crockett on them. The
best part was that they came in a package with a cardboard backing, upon which
was printed all the lyrics to the Ballad of Davy Crockett—I believe it was
twelve verses. (Eventually I got a record of the song—which I still have.
Not the cap, though.)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> I also was bold enough to stride out of the bright sunshine
into the dim tiny showroom at the nearby Behner’s Garage on the West Newton
Road, and timidly request the photograph I’d read that American Motors
dealers (sponsors of <i>Disneyland</i>) were giving away. Much to my
surprise, they gave me one. It was Fess
Parker in full costume, with printed autograph: <i>“When you’re out to win, try
the Crockett grin…your friend, Davy Crockett/Fess Parker.”</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Otherwise, that spring and summer we had the woods across
the road in green Pennsylvania to play Davy Crockett, and we could improvise an
Alamo out of a suitably shaped garage roof down on Maryland Avenue. We wore our
caps and whatever else we had that looked leathery. We cradled our long sticks meant to be rifles across our chests
like Davy did. I did what I felt was a
fair imitation of Fess Parker, starting every thoughtful sentence with, “Wellp…”</p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN90CJfJhaAoKnSS5HZu24Pwvzr3xkxQTcoCvIt1sRZUIVjqj2OlGtYhRiIHhNoeZwZemUPOjv1YkKvyQ79P3ZUEFQJ_qpCWPOweGg6RCCkqIZCdspYAikHlnLmpswKN3GUUhOvRZ5G2OAMdVYPaxmsoYVjFfW4q8S4XTEY40DaqUG_LLGmGU/s1030/davy%20crockett.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1030" data-original-width="816" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN90CJfJhaAoKnSS5HZu24Pwvzr3xkxQTcoCvIt1sRZUIVjqj2OlGtYhRiIHhNoeZwZemUPOjv1YkKvyQ79P3ZUEFQJ_qpCWPOweGg6RCCkqIZCdspYAikHlnLmpswKN3GUUhOvRZ5G2OAMdVYPaxmsoYVjFfW4q8S4XTEY40DaqUG_LLGmGU/w318-h400/davy%20crockett.jpg" width="318" /></a></div> It was easy to play Crockett partly because the violence on
the shows looked like play. There was
no blood and no bullet holes or visible knife wounds. The fights were more like the roughhouse and wrestling we did
anyway, and the “bang, you’re dead.” At
the same time, Disney’s stories always included death and its consequences,
however gently.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> At some point in our
play we would likely sing the song:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <i>Born on a mountaintop in Tennessee</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i> Greenest state in the land of the free</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>Raised in the woods so's he knew every tree</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i> Kilt him a b'ar when he was only three-</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>-Davy Davy Crockett</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i> King of the Wild Frontier</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> And so we inducted ourselves into a ritual of fantasy,
history and grace. We’d seen Davy at
the helpless cause of the Alamo, in the final act of going down fighting. Then
the next year there were two more episodes, billed as “legends” about Davy
Crockett, and the spectre of idealistic death was overcome by living on in
story, in myth that could encompass our own invented adventures. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><b><span style="font-size: medium;"> L</span></b>ive-action adventures on Disneyland—particularly under the
Frontierland banner that ranged over 18<sup>th</sup> and 19<sup>th</sup>
century American history—gradually increased in number until they dominated the
hours in the late 1950s. This nicely
paralleled my growing out of the prime age for animated fantasy and into live
action interests. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizOyVnyMElevAbfbzu0b-Tsfn2zm5zo2hiPm8rYIHdd9-Iwe2zoZM90PjGCYLM_UC3haB40wCPKjnk67TQf_hPe1aj6IAbg1_5_1SpFEUNy-mLNDC0aOO9IPUeBU8QvpFwnl2Mnv8iks1gvQpj559zx-IqKT58xylL4DJgpE2UPexrhfxdAV8/s500/tremain01.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="352" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizOyVnyMElevAbfbzu0b-Tsfn2zm5zo2hiPm8rYIHdd9-Iwe2zoZM90PjGCYLM_UC3haB40wCPKjnk67TQf_hPe1aj6IAbg1_5_1SpFEUNy-mLNDC0aOO9IPUeBU8QvpFwnl2Mnv8iks1gvQpj559zx-IqKT58xylL4DJgpE2UPexrhfxdAV8/s320/tremain01.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>I remember three characters in particular. In fifth and sixth grades I developed a keen
interest in the American Revolution and the early formation of the United
States. This may have started in
school—my fifth grade history textbook was titled “Builders of Our Country”—but
it was given impetus, as well as flesh and blood, by Disney’s <i>Johnny Tremain</i>. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Disney adapted Esther Forbes’ novel <i>Johnny Tremain</i>,
about a young apprentice silversmith in colonial Boston, beginning just before
protest against Britain’s “taxation without representation” that quickly led to
the Revolutionary War. Tremain
interacted with real historical figures, including Paul Revere, Samuel Adams
and James Otis, and the real events of the Boston Tea Party, and the battles of
Lexington and Concord. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Disney made a movie for theatres from the book, and
previewed it on a Disneyland episode in May 1957 called “The Liberty
Story.” Disney made insightful use of
footage of his film version of <i>Robin Hood</i>, because the King John opposed
by the mythical Robin Hood was the same King John who was forced to sign the
Magna Carta, renowned as the first acknowledgement of rights that led centuries
later to the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But the centerpiece of the episode was Johnny becoming
acquainted with the Sons of Liberty, and participating in the Boston Tea
Party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I couldn’t wait to see the
movie, and I didn’t have to wait long—I saw it in a theatre (in color) that
summer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then I saw it again in November
1958, when it was presented in two parts on <i>Disneyland</i>. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9cgUBniTozTKpjT4a4T19pvriV47edrBeTg_mEETgrzexxlHkdDzhO9LO3jX45Hw3bzKXKP0TgNWD--zCDOINvQdtr4ERukd_sJQWq2yzJH2w5Q7izcXYrf3PLRkNLq0d_lhr45K-ITrcsv8L_HmL6jHzrL41ctuKDX7CvPdhwzzrMcjLM-4/s300/tremain02.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9cgUBniTozTKpjT4a4T19pvriV47edrBeTg_mEETgrzexxlHkdDzhO9LO3jX45Hw3bzKXKP0TgNWD--zCDOINvQdtr4ERukd_sJQWq2yzJH2w5Q7izcXYrf3PLRkNLq0d_lhr45K-ITrcsv8L_HmL6jHzrL41ctuKDX7CvPdhwzzrMcjLM-4/w200-h200/tremain02.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>I was taken with the story of Johnny’s silversmithing
accident that burned his hand, rendering it useless for awhile, but other parts
of the story were less compelling than the talk about the reasons for
independence, and especially the thrilling parts, augmented as usual by catchy
tunes and rousing musical staging: <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>It’s a tall old tree and a strong old tree—<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>And we are the sons, yes we are the sons<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>The Sons of Liberty…</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeq4LsZ8ldqKQYs1tdhlOMRFzMvetp4QvKKs6HNdIpIBn0EaZgpwP-xecUgDFFGF6gjPsqz74-CXu_4gZQfosVAynotYPp67eHRsWpjZHUaiy3XOiqmCLHSCmB6CQzhHdNsFbbDZKbR0x0vsC9AVUHKNlLPGJmQFHKOuv3rud2GMmQTzhoac0/s300/tremain03.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeq4LsZ8ldqKQYs1tdhlOMRFzMvetp4QvKKs6HNdIpIBn0EaZgpwP-xecUgDFFGF6gjPsqz74-CXu_4gZQfosVAynotYPp67eHRsWpjZHUaiy3XOiqmCLHSCmB6CQzhHdNsFbbDZKbR0x0vsC9AVUHKNlLPGJmQFHKOuv3rud2GMmQTzhoac0/w200-h200/tremain03.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br /> My enthusiasm went as far as acquiring a Johnny Tremain tricorner hat, and paying closer attention to the founding
documents. In sixth grade I was
especially taken with the Declaration of Independence. I saw a facsimile of Thomas Jefferson’s
first draft in a text book, and copied it out in my notebook, trying as best I
could to imitate Jefferson’s handwriting.
Later I acquired (was given or more likely sent away for) fake yellowed
parchment copies of the Declaration, Preamble and Bill of Rights, and for good
measure the Gettysburg Address, and tacked them all on my bedroom wall. By the time I was in high school I knew
these texts pretty well.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjSWEHB0fl3SbrZEO_REDni4qEY2wEFzAcaTqNWXmpUmfM7kuO1Cnw0C5rSespx9A9Oi7T2f_eCP1hiPGqXs9C79rbtMnj1OXpv_-QyNkBV-D5wsrYBKv78H1VrmyOEHmdv3UmRYa3ez6-fCIEzrorLcSy2GGB8GGAWGoKFvUYRgyKMsGasB0/s1050/07_nine-lives-of-elfego-baca-the-1958%20(1).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="788" data-original-width="1050" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjSWEHB0fl3SbrZEO_REDni4qEY2wEFzAcaTqNWXmpUmfM7kuO1Cnw0C5rSespx9A9Oi7T2f_eCP1hiPGqXs9C79rbtMnj1OXpv_-QyNkBV-D5wsrYBKv78H1VrmyOEHmdv3UmRYa3ez6-fCIEzrorLcSy2GGB8GGAWGoKFvUYRgyKMsGasB0/s320/07_nine-lives-of-elfego-baca-the-1958%20(1).jpg" width="320" /></a></div>The second figure was Elfago Baca, a character at the center
of ten one-hour stories in the 6<sup>th</sup> and 7<sup>th</sup> seasons, from
October 1958 (when the show’s name had changed to <i>Walt Disney Presents</i>)
to March 1960, the longest series within the series. There was a real Elfago Baca, a Mexican American lawman and
lawyer in New Mexico and Texas in the late 19<sup>th</sup> century, and at
least some of the stories (especially the first few) were based on historical
accounts. The Disney Elfago Baca was more clearly a hero, and a champion of
Mexican Americans and minorities in general.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrQl-sxKHS5SfrAebOcpAdpPn-xqMwjMUJR50k9L_1N_Qtl1oOo24yL3LkqWDkySZttKu7OKJQHcPIsYM7FyVNfIL9UubTYsGTvxKZ4Znhp6Ejo5stMxvM9Qxr2pwhIdqSXneCPHZco_B3eJInO0soDJshzlVF4Bb4KoIsKoQCSDC9qVPFrQQ/s400/zorro02.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="400" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrQl-sxKHS5SfrAebOcpAdpPn-xqMwjMUJR50k9L_1N_Qtl1oOo24yL3LkqWDkySZttKu7OKJQHcPIsYM7FyVNfIL9UubTYsGTvxKZ4Znhp6Ejo5stMxvM9Qxr2pwhIdqSXneCPHZco_B3eJInO0soDJshzlVF4Bb4KoIsKoQCSDC9qVPFrQQ/w200-h150/zorro02.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br /> He was one of the few Latino (or Hispanic or Latinx) TV
heroes, though not the first—not even the first that Disney produced. He was preceded by the Cisco Kid and by
Disney’s Zorro, for example. <i>Zorro</i>
was the only other television series Walt Disney made, besides this anthology
series and the Mickey Mouse Club. He introduced it on <i>Disneyland</i>’s
fourth anniversary show, and it ran from October 1957 to the summer of
1959. We watched this series, too. This was so much our Zorro that when its
popularity brought the 1940 Tyrone Power flick, <i>The Mark of Zorro</i>, back
to one of our Saturday matinees, I’m afraid it was laughed off the screen. For one thing, his “Z” was way too sloppy.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Though Guy Williams (Zorro) and Robert Loggia (Elfago Baca)
both had Italian parents, Loggia (in his first major role) effectively played
Baca as a hero who emerged from the Mexican American community. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Because he survived an onslaught of gunfire while besieged
in a crumbling sod house, Baca got the reputation as indestructible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The inevitable Disney theme song emphasized
the “nine lives” aspect as it played with the Spanish names Elfago El Gato (the
cat.) </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-DMHi804cLZu9eHjlLoRNRnt_ItP4yiOV0tRfYr_0E760ECW080sz7iDSA6QnODyITORAqUWAX89OxNp0Ua2bMoLt398HAXRwkG9NxDyUjMnkGVRn2vjn1BvP2S10_c0vtxySXkSILf6LQoVuVE0VjfcR7zoAIEhihVYYUNR2h8lTR4oYUVQ/s961/baca03.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="961" data-original-width="736" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-DMHi804cLZu9eHjlLoRNRnt_ItP4yiOV0tRfYr_0E760ECW080sz7iDSA6QnODyITORAqUWAX89OxNp0Ua2bMoLt398HAXRwkG9NxDyUjMnkGVRn2vjn1BvP2S10_c0vtxySXkSILf6LQoVuVE0VjfcR7zoAIEhihVYYUNR2h8lTR4oYUVQ/s320/baca03.jpg" width="245" /></a></div>I was drawn to Loggia as Elfago Baca partly because although
he was slim he used cat-like quickness to his advantage. I was a skinny kid, and my
self-consciousness increased with age (by this time I was 11 and 12), so Baca
was a kind of model. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> But he was a model also in other ways. In the Disney version, as a lawyer he
champions the rule of law over violence, and the principle of equal justice
under the law. This extends not only to
his Mexican American community but to, for example, the Anglo settlers who
arrive to farm in what was until then cattle country.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> They are called Mustangers, apparently poor whites from the
Blue Ridge Mountains. They are the
subject of violence by cattle ranchers and prejudice in town, where they are
derided and prevented from buying goods they need. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see the mid-1950s
parallels to the Freedom Riders, sit-ins and children attacked for going to
schools because of their race.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Veteran TV writer Maurice Tombragel, who wrote for most of
the westerns I watched in the early to mid 1950s, provided some startling
dialogue towards the end of the story.
Fearing the fate of their lawyer, Elfago Baca, and the sheriff in
confrontation with the ranchers who burned their farms, the Mustangers and
their wagons are occupying the main street of the town, and preventing anyone
from trading at the general store. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The storekeeper (played by DeForrest Kelly) appeals to the
Mustanger elder. “It’s not right to
make innocent people suffer,” he says, meaning his usual customers.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> “Those who think themselves better than others are not
innocent,” the elder says.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> “But you don’t understand,” the storekeeper pleads. “I was forced to do what I did.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> “Cowards are even less innocent than hypocrites.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Good thing only children were watching. A political statement like that could get
you blacklisted.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizgr3U0oDDh3QTOLJIc4akBqfeV6K5vKRi6O4VWx0PYqhsz6A1NSh2cihUdEbsOd86xD75a8TF0xVHAP9AEzqJspaxosUK6yhTOtuwuZ_F9XVDr4U0Wuzc9FMgCTGv0eqhSI5E_hTL790Do0LWWvzsjcgfblmD7ZOc4oANKdvox7m7-mQZWXQ/s300/swampfox02.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="204" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizgr3U0oDDh3QTOLJIc4akBqfeV6K5vKRi6O4VWx0PYqhsz6A1NSh2cihUdEbsOd86xD75a8TF0xVHAP9AEzqJspaxosUK6yhTOtuwuZ_F9XVDr4U0Wuzc9FMgCTGv0eqhSI5E_hTL790Do0LWWvzsjcgfblmD7ZOc4oANKdvox7m7-mQZWXQ/s1600/swampfox02.jpg" width="204" /></a></div><br /> The third figure was another character from the
Revolutionary War, but this time a real person: Francis Marion, known as the
Swamp Fox.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Though no battles in
that war were fought near where I lived (as were several in the preceding,
so-called French and Indian War), that period was important in the history of
my hometown. The city of Greensburg was
named after Revolutionary War General Nathaniel Greene. Though he’d never been there, several
notable town fathers had been officers serving in his command. So this added a certain texture to my
interest.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> General Francis Marion was also under Greene’s command later
in the war, but his fame was established in the swamps of South Carolina as
Colonel Marion, leading a band of irregulars on guerilla missions. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Disney dramatized him as the Robin Hood of the American
Revolution, and the catchy theme song emphasizes that, even stealing a line
from the ITV Robin Hood series:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <i>Swamp Fox, Swamp Fox, tail in his hat</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Nobody knows where they Swamp Fox at.<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Swamp Fox, Swamp Fox, hiding in the glen,<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>He runs away to fight again.<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUwGZdEkZW3wOcxHcotZqIzXVM7JTfjHlbz7anyqQsxgTPoleaf3nCBp2RjWQ2lrVKvmeYA5mZ6wORq5dc4fYN-qK87G2BHb3a0fA9CuGmELjvjE6ejOrfvspL4EA87D5IU9_HnSyWiNj4x8BzQkf4hcDD9Vp_ClCB-htxzMs2t3PAUzeaysg/s500/s-l500.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="497" data-original-width="500" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUwGZdEkZW3wOcxHcotZqIzXVM7JTfjHlbz7anyqQsxgTPoleaf3nCBp2RjWQ2lrVKvmeYA5mZ6wORq5dc4fYN-qK87G2BHb3a0fA9CuGmELjvjE6ejOrfvspL4EA87D5IU9_HnSyWiNj4x8BzQkf4hcDD9Vp_ClCB-htxzMs2t3PAUzeaysg/s320/s-l500.jpg" width="320" /></a></i></div><i> </i>Leslie Neilson played the Swamp Fox in eight episodes: two
in October 1959, four in January 1960 (taking up the entire month of shows),
and two in January 1961.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> By the late 1950s, Disney’s live action TV shows were not
only giving new talent the spotlight, they were employing some of the best
character actors in Hollywood, as well as experienced film directors, writers
and cinematographers. Television
provided these Hollywood veterans with something movies couldn’t anymore: regular
work, and growing audiences. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> So long-time Hollywood western director Harry Keller
directed the Swamp Fox shows, which were written by Lewis R. Foster, a veteran
writer who began with Laurel and Hardy silents and later contributed to the
famous Jimmy Stewart feature <i>Mr. Smith Goes To Washington.</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> There were many movie veterans in the cast, and some
relative newcomers, like star Leslie Neilsen (fresh from playing the intrepid
captain of the first cinema starship in <i>Forbidden Planet</i>), and actors
Patrick Macnee (star of the 1960s British spy spoof series <i>The Avengers</i>)
and Slim Pickens (<i>Doctor Strangelove</i>.) </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWX9RG7SFUi0a2-QIVPc6VKwfHi18Fe3a_rNSXR86v7fokowidnj3rK3TAlttK-wO2wnLpeqTD7ftEu0K3_CqtTtiQMJR59Hk_vhjcTa4-94-4UWjLjAHBEH9MVV_sYK4nERwj8INUokO6znXiUJMnQGgB8DbgSsG1z0-MRI2UvaQB6jAT_t8/s462/dfpy83119_grande.jpeg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="462" data-original-width="434" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWX9RG7SFUi0a2-QIVPc6VKwfHi18Fe3a_rNSXR86v7fokowidnj3rK3TAlttK-wO2wnLpeqTD7ftEu0K3_CqtTtiQMJR59Hk_vhjcTa4-94-4UWjLjAHBEH9MVV_sYK4nERwj8INUokO6znXiUJMnQGgB8DbgSsG1z0-MRI2UvaQB6jAT_t8/s320/dfpy83119_grande.jpeg" width="301" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beverly Garland, Brian Keith in Elfago Baca</td></tr></tbody></table>Appearing in Elfago Baca were such future movie and TV stars
as James Coburn, Brian Keith and the aforementioned Doctor McCoy. 1950s sci-fi scream queen, Beverly Garland,
got to act a different kind of role. By
then at least some of Hollywood knew it couldn’t beat TV, so it was hurriedly
joining it.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> By the time Leslie Neilsen was riding across the screen, I
was in eighth and ninth grades, and too old to be playing Swamp Fox with
neighborhood friends. (We mostly played baseball and football, until we drifted
apart, caught in the pressure-cookers of separate high schools.) It was also
near the end of my regularly watching the Disney show. I don’t recognize many
episodes after 1960, though I recall the teasers for the Fred MacMurray movie
comedy, <i>The Absent-Minded Professor</i>. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Disney used many of the same story techniques in his live
action films as he had in his animations, particularly the use of established
characters, music and catchy songs, and the mood of fantasy. His stories about storybook characters
easily edged into his treatment of actual historical figures. Some if not most historians will suggest
that the real Davy Crockett or Elfago Baca or Francis Marion were not so
unambiguously admirable as the Disney versions, but the emphasis in Disney was
on the story as a model. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But if the live action stories of Frontierland used fact to
augment fantasy, Disney Studios made use of the tools of fantasy to illuminate
fact (or at least educated conjecture) in episodes under the banner of
Adventureland and Tomorrowland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These
will be the subject of my third and final Disney installment.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> That installment will also include thoughts on Disney,
television and reading. This might be
especially appropriate as we try to deal with another alleged barrier to the
pace and concentration of reading, represented by social media and the
Internet.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-56113461177624843462022-04-25T22:20:00.017-07:002023-05-28T22:09:05.294-07:00TV and Me: Disneyland (Part 1) Fantasyland<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Television and I grew up together. This is our story. Seventh in a<a href="http://dreamingup.blogspot.com/search/label/TV%20and%20Me"> series</a>.</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWENZTKXnc7LexeVUWb5ivDfy9H-onxw4VFqoi7SAad6TAEmQ2BsLmQroZkC-wihfQErP1f7rhjNwwYO0LdCF7l8rXe4ot86GfQQaNHFwrrXfPEcxZXAMqzPNGcNLAlzDxm4yFANpjkYl6Q4DmaYsifvfAH_sqB1oQvNERHwqhJyvAqZezcQ/s1456/2zitvp.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1456" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWENZTKXnc7LexeVUWb5ivDfy9H-onxw4VFqoi7SAad6TAEmQ2BsLmQroZkC-wihfQErP1f7rhjNwwYO0LdCF7l8rXe4ot86GfQQaNHFwrrXfPEcxZXAMqzPNGcNLAlzDxm4yFANpjkYl6Q4DmaYsifvfAH_sqB1oQvNERHwqhJyvAqZezcQ/w400-h296/2zitvp.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> It started with the movies.
The first movie I remember going to was Walt Disney’s <i>Snow White</i>
at the Arcadia Theatre on Third Street in Youngwood, Pennsylvania, where
children were admitted for a dime. It was 1952, I was five or six, and
memorably frightened by the wicked witch carrying that bright red poison apple.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The Arcadia was up
the street and down a block from my grandparents’ house on Depot Street. Either my mother took me to <i>Snow White</i>,
or it was one of the times that I walked to the Arcadia in the charge of older
children, a trusted brother and sister, neighbors on Depot Street. I’d like to think it was my mother, because
she had seen this movie when it first came out in 1938, when she was 18. She named it in the
diary she kept for most of January 1939 as one of her top ten movies of the
previous year. When I saw it in 1952, it was only the second time it had been back
in theatres since then.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> I saw other Disney movies and cartoons at the Arcadia and
the Manos Theatre in Greensburg, but memories of those are tangled up with
learning about them on the television show that over the decades would go by
several different names, but which began in 1954 as <i>Disneyland</i>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> </i><i>Disneyland</i> the TV show was my strongest connection to
Disney stories, and those stories were a major feature of my childhood. Walt Disney’s reputation has been shaken in
more recent years, particularly for his involvement in the Blacklist. And those stories look different now, though
not only in features that are questionable today. Some didn’t appeal to me, but on
balance, Disney and his company’s creations and the discoveries they led
to, were constructive elements of my cultural education, and my childhood in
general, including its quotient of joy. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><b><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcM79p_PpAwuZm_NPMxX7J7ZyDqEa4a4Wwy92fRhekPs-PLFZEuOJa8cVs3prZWeO3c3KNXlGIjN6XWOlHyurb5asMN-ASOE-FKAUl7o6RhyxRB0N1NOWnnCS0aze-MeBsh2QEKYcqlZqgAR5qAEjE6STIwLtri1dvoyGWxHOlokxdtg-94g/s270/fam%20watch%20tv%201954.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="187" data-original-width="270" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcM79p_PpAwuZm_NPMxX7J7ZyDqEa4a4Wwy92fRhekPs-PLFZEuOJa8cVs3prZWeO3c3KNXlGIjN6XWOlHyurb5asMN-ASOE-FKAUl7o6RhyxRB0N1NOWnnCS0aze-MeBsh2QEKYcqlZqgAR5qAEjE6STIwLtri1dvoyGWxHOlokxdtg-94g/s1600/fam%20watch%20tv%201954.jpg" width="270" /></a></span></b></div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /> I</span></b>n the early 1950s, the movie industry was terrified of
television. It seemed that box office
numbers were dropping in proportion to the growing number of TV sets in
American homes. But the industry still
had hopes of crushing this fledgling competitor. For as late as 1953, the TV
listings in the Pittsburgh dailies were still considerably smaller than either
the radio listings or the movie theatre ads.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The big movie studios principal weapon was denying their recent
films and their big stars from appearing on the home screen. Even as television prospered with older
movie content, and made new stars of B movie actors and bit players like Milton
Berle, Lucille Ball and William (Hopalong Cassidy) Boyd, the studios stuck to
their strategy. If they could hold out
just a little longer…</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The Walt Disney Company meanwhile was a Hollywood anomaly.
Long before Disney became the behemoth of Hollywood, a conglomerate
prospering on creations of companies it bought and absorbed, it was a modest
movie studio that released only cartoon shorts and the relative few features it
made. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBoFtj1bQQ88EnQZRJMuJqFRNlMht6WeMQiE6l6RzxeKxniRxnPUenAppxHtLTLBH5dfIovtxKPKBcuiHUl8iRpuszQhX89ZaJKfd1g28GdxeDQPsYPonQFwDtfoJjWWTByyBlgndn7LbbKaZz4n9O1KmAOPhqQbF7iDJVQUgPB7E7cAFcJg/s3000/steamboat.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2991" data-original-width="3000" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBoFtj1bQQ88EnQZRJMuJqFRNlMht6WeMQiE6l6RzxeKxniRxnPUenAppxHtLTLBH5dfIovtxKPKBcuiHUl8iRpuszQhX89ZaJKfd1g28GdxeDQPsYPonQFwDtfoJjWWTByyBlgndn7LbbKaZz4n9O1KmAOPhqQbF7iDJVQUgPB7E7cAFcJg/s320/steamboat.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>But Disney prospered by adopting (or inventing) new
techniques and technologies, and using them to tell stories. In 1938 <i>Snow White</i> was not only his
first animated feature-- it was the first animated feature movie, period. It was preceded by more than a decade of
Walt Disney’s earlier innovations, among them the first cartoon to use sound
synchronized to the action (“Steamboat Willie,” the debut of Disney’s prime
star, Mickey Mouse) and the first full color movie cartoon—in Technicolor, no
less.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <i>Snow White</i> became the biggest box office hit of any
Hollywood film to that time. But several animated features that followed didn’t
do as well. The studio’s fortunes were further stymied by World War II, which
cut out lucrative foreign markets except the UK, where Disney movies could be
shown but their profits were frozen until after the war, and even then could
only be spent within Great Britain.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCLFGAShZhu58427ULCZnv8UtgKzqA5bseXB6gpCV4sVs4COYA_chtjqcJewBJCJ1F_AElWUxX5xAFFH7oCJiRnQx5PsZuyR7e5jtHz3tkPErRGxNAdFxOv4Sm2OZ-OiejoD5qwI-KyHrmm5yb0kqfZ76GP-AWKie8nFe28TXNV2M4zP10UQ/s720/cind05.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="720" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCLFGAShZhu58427ULCZnv8UtgKzqA5bseXB6gpCV4sVs4COYA_chtjqcJewBJCJ1F_AElWUxX5xAFFH7oCJiRnQx5PsZuyR7e5jtHz3tkPErRGxNAdFxOv4Sm2OZ-OiejoD5qwI-KyHrmm5yb0kqfZ76GP-AWKie8nFe28TXNV2M4zP10UQ/s320/cind05.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> After making scores of training films and other patriotic
movies during the war, the company clawed its way back by packaging animated
shorts. Then Disney went all in on a
new animated feature in 1950—and <i>Cinderella</i> was a huge hit. <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the early 50s, the company began using those sequestered
profits to make some live action movies in the UK. They did well, and Walt Disney wanted to do more. Then television
came calling. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Disney knew the standard Hollywood argument: that if people
could get high quality images-and-sound entertainment at home, they wouldn’t be
buying tickets at the box office to see it in theatres. (This was the era, by the way, when movie
theatres were installing—and bragging loudly about—air conditioning, as well as
experimenting with 3-D, smell-o-vision and Cinerama.)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6O5FNa4fPfWy1oPDq1Usea4enDPObft9XJc4RQgGSfDGPTFMtffBCb8YP6wGqYTiGvXtLquEY3N7AmMns72XPS2gtLftu0gpulai67-Wq7xFADTtXL6RR31R4dHh89rEopUxh_fAJgcg9FJHlNcoYroq-Ked_fJX4bU5zAjAqcYdvr-UZEA/s780/disneyland-tv-debuts-TDID1180x600-780x440.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="780" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6O5FNa4fPfWy1oPDq1Usea4enDPObft9XJc4RQgGSfDGPTFMtffBCb8YP6wGqYTiGvXtLquEY3N7AmMns72XPS2gtLftu0gpulai67-Wq7xFADTtXL6RR31R4dHh89rEopUxh_fAJgcg9FJHlNcoYroq-Ked_fJX4bU5zAjAqcYdvr-UZEA/s320/disneyland-tv-debuts-TDID1180x600-780x440.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> But as usual Disney saw a bigger picture. As the guy who introduced Mickey Mouse with
a cornucopia of merchandising, he intuited that different elements could
reinforce each other. He was going to
test that approach with his latest idea: an entertainment theme park he wanted
to build called Disneyland. By
Hollywood’s theory, he was subverting the movies by enticing people to get
their entertainment in an amusement park.
But he didn’t see it that way.
He didn’t see subtraction. He
saw multiplication.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> So when all three TV networks were wooing him, he imposed an
unusual condition: he required that the network contribute a sizeable
investment in cash and loan guarantees for Disneyland, the park.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> In the early 1950s, a family-friendly theme park was as
unknown as an animated feature film before 1938. Nobody believed the park was
going to work. CBS and NBC passed. (Apparently the Dumont network, already on
life support, wasn’t considered.) ABC
was almost as small as Dumont but having recently merged with United Paramount
movie theatres, it had some cash. As a
major Hollywood movie name, Disney would give ABC instant credibility. It was worth the risk. They made the deal in March 1954.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkiT2s2MFDDpppDNuygs4h2qWh5t7hdc9sWC_mOgaFZv3yCHiTInUkc_m1qIoX8h9yq3utaDrfKWE19mhZOjcNlu6yTZoQ7Y4QWb_asuvqagSaQT52mZ1v3eUfH3l8dCP_mMKnbFKMK7Jppul1heEtKpF5fT97J_2fSFKlbE9vf52G5-9dpg/s259/dland%20logo.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="195" data-original-width="259" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkiT2s2MFDDpppDNuygs4h2qWh5t7hdc9sWC_mOgaFZv3yCHiTInUkc_m1qIoX8h9yq3utaDrfKWE19mhZOjcNlu6yTZoQ7Y4QWb_asuvqagSaQT52mZ1v3eUfH3l8dCP_mMKnbFKMK7Jppul1heEtKpF5fT97J_2fSFKlbE9vf52G5-9dpg/s1600/dland%20logo.jpg" width="259" /></a></div> Disneyland the park was financed and under construction when
the weekly series of one-hour television programs, not coincidentally also
called <i>Disneyland,</i> premiered on the ABC network at 7:30 on Wednesday
evening, October 27, 1954. It was
sponsored by American Motors (Hudson, Nash, Rambler), the ABC network of
automakers.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> In 1954, a gallon of gasoline at the pump cost 29 cents
(which was paid in cash to the attendant who filled the tank, while wiping the
windshield.) A loaf of bread at the corner grocer was about 20 cents, a quart
of milk was a quarter. First class
postage was three cents. The average cost of a new house was $1700. So basically, <i>Back to the Future</i>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> I was in the third grade.
My classmates and I had just eagerly lined up for our first polio shots,
with the vaccine developed by Dr. Jonas Salk in nearby Pittsburgh, who had
ended this grim cause of fear for all children.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The show opened with Tinkerbell from <i>Peter Pan</i> flying
in sparkly orbit to the plaintive voice of Jiminy Cricket from <i>Pinocchio</i>,
singing <i>“When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are…”</i> </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgKuhxDxgowiJNU_vJDUNPoKSNEVa-6jdPQaqdcqMGeh1LOZkEoGLjhameCRhW_tSFj-xK9yu3Nhx4w34gzwY_8E3V2CV5rIlT98OmSfJsCheyRbr0ajuwjlbIsBGQR9CUCEX2rSWcXmqJwXV9bc2dVkQaAtay3g8yOxb_QSYt53rXKYxFCA/s258/lands.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="195" data-original-width="258" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgKuhxDxgowiJNU_vJDUNPoKSNEVa-6jdPQaqdcqMGeh1LOZkEoGLjhameCRhW_tSFj-xK9yu3Nhx4w34gzwY_8E3V2CV5rIlT98OmSfJsCheyRbr0ajuwjlbIsBGQR9CUCEX2rSWcXmqJwXV9bc2dVkQaAtay3g8yOxb_QSYt53rXKYxFCA/s1600/lands.jpg" width="258" /></a></div>The announcer’s voice (familiar from many movie theatre
preview narrations) told us: <i>“Each week as you enter this timeless land, one
of these many worlds will open to you: Fantasyland, the happiest kingdom of
them all. Tomorrowland, promise of
things to come. Adventureland, the
wonderworld of nature’s own realm. Frontierland, tall tales and true from the
legendary past.</i><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Walt Disney himself was the onscreen host. The first episode introduced the series, and
then moved to the world most associated with him: the animated stories of
Fantasyland. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> </b><b>Fantasyland: <i>From Alice to Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah</i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE0O5kvn_4etXgUYXJvyV-vVRfeRlVhqSxu5ignvIx_8T7EajMZXNJIcISfGq_Y2N0UvOsdGNUfeDQSPuqH3pTUkAiAxkCkchrrO3Jhy2VjOIWWQCLnNrCCldxMX73doLls8zB0pEUZuGLRNXXNvrPR-CQPhOaCHOXFMRaFvsOYoyU9fvNQg/s236/fantasyland.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="210" data-original-width="236" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE0O5kvn_4etXgUYXJvyV-vVRfeRlVhqSxu5ignvIx_8T7EajMZXNJIcISfGq_Y2N0UvOsdGNUfeDQSPuqH3pTUkAiAxkCkchrrO3Jhy2VjOIWWQCLnNrCCldxMX73doLls8zB0pEUZuGLRNXXNvrPR-CQPhOaCHOXFMRaFvsOYoyU9fvNQg/s1600/fantasyland.jpg" width="236" /></a></div> The second half of that first episode provided a quick
history of the studio’s biggest star, Mickey Mouse. When presenting animation,
especially in this first year, Disney illustrated and explained how it was
done. Some would argue that this could
spoil children’s belief in what they saw, or its magical feeling, like opening
the curtain to show the Wizard of Oz working the levers and pulling the
strings. But I remember being entirely absorbed by it. Disney didn’t talk down
to children watching; he explained everything as he would to adults. It only made me more eager to see the
finished product, when I promptly dropped into that world completely.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The second show was devoted to <i>Alice in Wonderland</i>,
his animated feature originally released just three years before. It was an
appropriate choice, for Alice was Disney’s first fantasyland star in the 1920s,
even before Mickey. The young animator
produced a series of short Alice comedies which (like the contemporaneous Fleischer
“Out of the Inkwell” cartoon series) combined live action and animation. The live action stars of the first, called
“Alice’s Wonderland” were Alice (a very 1920s child) and young Walt himself,
setting up the premise as the animator of the wonderland Alice would
inhabit. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-_vEaVy7ck3gTIa7YEs1ME361mR0dygKDez3HBPkKyqI9SLaY0mWFxXvMzT31t4sO2JzKtbmI6J3F4UKYnhcyWDq3ME74dDcrCXWZx_8zUbH6Pluttqn4i_bYzRzvo-_nvVlnbeOipTgpBHwxxLPyFRcvo8KNsLWqbMe4Iw6Hk-ng57j-3g/s480/p0b383vs.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="480" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-_vEaVy7ck3gTIa7YEs1ME361mR0dygKDez3HBPkKyqI9SLaY0mWFxXvMzT31t4sO2JzKtbmI6J3F4UKYnhcyWDq3ME74dDcrCXWZx_8zUbH6Pluttqn4i_bYzRzvo-_nvVlnbeOipTgpBHwxxLPyFRcvo8KNsLWqbMe4Iw6Hk-ng57j-3g/s320/p0b383vs.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Once he began to make feature films, Disney tried to adapt
the Lewis Carroll stories several times, as animation, or a live action film
(to star Mary Pickford) and even a combination of the two, to star Ginger
Rogers. Storyboards were created, many
songs written and scripts attempted (one by Aldous Huxley.) But it wasn’t until several years after
World War II that he found the key to making it work.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The serendipitous
event that made Alice possible was an unpredictable byproduct of one of Walt
Disney’s darkest hours. After years of
pleading with management, Disney animators finally organized into a union and
went on strike in 1941. Walt Disney,
who worked closely with his creative teams and organized his studio to
encourage personal relationships in ways familiar now as a prototype for high
tech company campuses, was furious. He
became convinced the union was a Communist conspiracy, and reportedly testified
to that view even years later, when he named names to the House UnAmerican
Activities Committee.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Walt Disney refused to negotiate, so he saw a picket line of
angry animators and their families and sympathizers on his studio lot, while
work on the upcoming animated feature <i>Dumbo</i> slowed to a crawl. So he accepted a longstanding request from
the State Department for a goodwill tour of South America. He was gone a month, during which his
brother Roy Disney, who ran the studio business, came to an agreement with the
union that met his animators’ initial demands. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXja0ioXVAqCKU0nUHSrhbS7pTQFu3CnxpWM3SZ4SM9CKE5OepG90fUm3cFHfb6HkpRYfLmFkO1Nl69N1WXe_Dd-0_vgaLMS7ybNtOeefJRWCqm_XwlB-KB6fdvUAlSlPEIK27ByuoQNYzgTWlxcsmv9XGlrxC8M2UJypsRlSF5YqKzk3P2g/s1269/disney%20mary%20blair.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1269" data-original-width="1023" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXja0ioXVAqCKU0nUHSrhbS7pTQFu3CnxpWM3SZ4SM9CKE5OepG90fUm3cFHfb6HkpRYfLmFkO1Nl69N1WXe_Dd-0_vgaLMS7ybNtOeefJRWCqm_XwlB-KB6fdvUAlSlPEIK27ByuoQNYzgTWlxcsmv9XGlrxC8M2UJypsRlSF5YqKzk3P2g/s320/disney%20mary%20blair.jpg" width="258" /></a></div>Meanwhile Walt Disney toured South America with his wife and
a studio entourage that included a young artist named Mary Blair. Photos suggest she was a striking figure
(though apparently not on strike), very fashionably dressed and coiffed. On this trip she was impressed by the
juxtaposition of bold and bright colors she found in South America,
particularly among native populations and in the rainforests.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> When Disney revived the Alice in Wonderland project after
the war, Mary Blair provided some concept sketches that combined these bright colors with the oblique shapes and three-dimensional design found in the
California School of Watercolor style that she knew. Walt Disney immediately
saw that not only was this a new and dynamic look, but it suggested a narrative
emphasis on the whimsically strange elements of Carroll’s book. He finally had a generative starting point. Mary Blair determined the color palette for
the resulting animation.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw3f34msmz24XJtoce9xozQ7J38zz1pL7QXMfHdRJTe8dMQHdZby3fnD2cMew2MUz82nRvkTEOgDmFRFoGU7R27W-F3HqJfd4ESjUVIROfMK0CILdZOFoBy64FCtI6z3d72TxkAcXUAVKHcHaptTPdnhjph42Qfvk5lJn4HXbKsIZ35N-WkQ/s1280/alice04.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="690" data-original-width="1280" height="173" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw3f34msmz24XJtoce9xozQ7J38zz1pL7QXMfHdRJTe8dMQHdZby3fnD2cMew2MUz82nRvkTEOgDmFRFoGU7R27W-F3HqJfd4ESjUVIROfMK0CILdZOFoBy64FCtI6z3d72TxkAcXUAVKHcHaptTPdnhjph42Qfvk5lJn4HXbKsIZ35N-WkQ/s320/alice04.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> But when the movie was finally finished, Walt worried that
the Alice story didn’t pull all the emotional strings common to successful
Disney animation features. Sensing
difficulty in the movie marketplace, he made his first foray into television
with an hour show meant to promote Alice’s theatrical release, four years
before his first Disneyland episode.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Disney made a one hour show for the 1950 Christmas season,
shortly before the release of his<i> Alice in Wonderland. </i>(He consistently
related Alice to the English tradition of Christmas storytelling, and the Lewis
Carroll story remains a Christmas holiday staple.) It was called <i>An Hour in Wonderland</i>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijKpXLSe_TUvlY8wxEuNTXOYHddY7-0Z9Yo6lm1xVUZaU0jGbBVx1TlkXr-X9WcAqq7q0NuwKXVGqVzLNCF2-wPhuacoaLWaAL9UFGaPsln5E0J71DSQykqSOLgX-DO69XJH5PpS-t4cxbWnGMW0VTmBaQzcqE4BApRKBRR2Ue35qpwSZLMQ/s359/rare-disney-1950-first-tv-show-ever-8x10-photo_1_5fb3c69f7820d7e1128dec930e86d2ac.jpg" style="clear: left; display: inline; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="359" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijKpXLSe_TUvlY8wxEuNTXOYHddY7-0Z9Yo6lm1xVUZaU0jGbBVx1TlkXr-X9WcAqq7q0NuwKXVGqVzLNCF2-wPhuacoaLWaAL9UFGaPsln5E0J71DSQykqSOLgX-DO69XJH5PpS-t4cxbWnGMW0VTmBaQzcqE4BApRKBRR2Ue35qpwSZLMQ/s320/rare-disney-1950-first-tv-show-ever-8x10-photo_1_5fb3c69f7820d7e1128dec930e86d2ac.jpg" width="320" /></a> Sponsored by Coca Cola, the premise is a holiday party whose
guest of honor is Kathyrn Beaumont, the voice and living image of Alice (she
also voiced Wendy in <i>Peter Pan</i>.) </p><p class="MsoNormal">Guests at the party include the
ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his two most famous dummies, the city swell
Charlie McCarthy and the country bumpkin Mortimer Snerd (there’s a priceless
moment when Mortimer is in conversation with a stuffed Goofy, who is the
Disney version of the tongue-tied country clown.) </p><p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Other guests included young Bobby Driscoll, winner of a
special juvenile actor Oscar who would be the voice of Peter Pan, and Disney’s
two teenage daughters. The
entertainment centered on a Magic Mirror, in which a genie (played by Hans
Conreid, the voice of Captain Hook) called up a Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck
cartoon, and scenes from Disney’s <i>Snow White, Song of the South </i>and, of
course, <i>Alice in Wonderland</i>. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHi7h9YIuelNizbXcExqbpd7xDB_d5Com-MhMa-IUbbiGyWdjWfPeQuwlf94fv4weLULwTu8YxLP5KydP_zhyBPnYLWeG-7B81KpX-GvvdHbdi29o4UMtHNW8EgVXCveEKxlMfvl5TBjkuH_pAYHn2vhA0SpunK7sHCtyEvFkLCuS5ml-YpbI/s400/one%20hour%20in%20wonderland%20(1).png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="305" data-original-width="400" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHi7h9YIuelNizbXcExqbpd7xDB_d5Com-MhMa-IUbbiGyWdjWfPeQuwlf94fv4weLULwTu8YxLP5KydP_zhyBPnYLWeG-7B81KpX-GvvdHbdi29o4UMtHNW8EgVXCveEKxlMfvl5TBjkuH_pAYHn2vhA0SpunK7sHCtyEvFkLCuS5ml-YpbI/s320/one%20hour%20in%20wonderland%20(1).png" width="320" /></a></div>The show didn’t do much for the Alice box office, but it did
turn out to be a prototype for <i>Disneyland</i>. (Even the Hans Conreid Magic Mirror would turn up again on the
show.)<p></p> It turned out Disney was right to worry about the
movie. <i>Alice in Wonderland </i>didn’t
do well at the movie box office in 1951, especially compared to the gigantic
popularity of its immediate predecessor, <i>Cinderella</i>. So it wasn’t a hard choice to show a TV hour
version of it on <i>Disneyland</i>. The
gamble of it succeeding on television when it didn’t in theatres paid off. <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3bhQPwYlxuTOYXMGbG2boVig2VtuSM5St9huhKlldDtBopoQYeeljLl1ut-Jx6COv3_uPqFZTpeC3_x7cKfXbqkGaTi0lR8sWJToGO61O1D16Dsfu_1uHcRoSTLP1mBVfFHEj1zqV51qoXOYEqtfllKJoUdR7-OOsT_suSGJ3hsEF0zk8jA/s1424/alice01.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1424" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3bhQPwYlxuTOYXMGbG2boVig2VtuSM5St9huhKlldDtBopoQYeeljLl1ut-Jx6COv3_uPqFZTpeC3_x7cKfXbqkGaTi0lR8sWJToGO61O1D16Dsfu_1uHcRoSTLP1mBVfFHEj1zqV51qoXOYEqtfllKJoUdR7-OOsT_suSGJ3hsEF0zk8jA/s320/alice01.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>This <i>Alice in Wonderland</i> was made because of Mary
Blair‘s spectacular use of color (she also did <i>Cinderella</i> and <i>Peter
Pan</i> in the early 50s), but it became ironic as well as iconic as a popular
TV episode in black and white. <div><br /></div><div>Disney
was a fearless innovator, but he also never did anything once. Disneyland episodes, or parts of them, were
rerun over and over, and the black and white version of Alice is all anybody
saw for the next ten years, when it became the most famous version of the Lewis
Carroll story, certainly for my generation.</div><div><br /></div><div>
Our image of Alice, the White Rabbit <i>(“I’m late, I’m late, for a very
important date”)</i>, Ed Wynn’s Mad Hatter (including the monologue which
matched Wynn improvising) and the Cheshire Cat, were all Disney images. (Of
course those images were seen in color in magazines, storybooks and other
merchandise, as well as in Disneyland, the park.)<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqwql0mbyJ1cX4OmdawvU5oegmhp_x6-JG8-nzw5gxgxcFLqhIzz7FVS5_8TYGQwWbOu8Qe46OHrIirHS0FtwlWQ4djbXF-hZVxcXxjRr7MZ7PJ-btfpfRJ0cwaetCKmXtAxCcX6j7XgEzF1kt5LgczdX1Y79bg44MdglCBkXe5Rt6oEUYOw/s720/alice02.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="720" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqwql0mbyJ1cX4OmdawvU5oegmhp_x6-JG8-nzw5gxgxcFLqhIzz7FVS5_8TYGQwWbOu8Qe46OHrIirHS0FtwlWQ4djbXF-hZVxcXxjRr7MZ7PJ-btfpfRJ0cwaetCKmXtAxCcX6j7XgEzF1kt5LgczdX1Y79bg44MdglCBkXe5Rt6oEUYOw/s320/alice02.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> Once the Disney show moved to NBC for its color capabilities
and became <i>Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color,</i> the hour version
appeared in color for the first time in 1964.
It would be another decade before the entire movie returned to
theatres. I may have seen one or the
other of the color versions, but I didn’t fully appreciate the amazing colors
until I saw the DVD. I could understand
why the makers of <i>Yellow Submarine </i>copied so much of it, but even they
couldn’t get quite as psychedelic as this. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><b><span style="font-size: medium;"> I</span></b>n the lean years during and just after World War II when
the Disney studio couldn’t afford to make animated features, they released a series of compilations or
“package films” of feature length, but comprised of several short animated
films. One of these in 1949 combined two
stories in <i>The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.</i> Both stories memorably showed up on <i>Disneyland</i>
in its first two seasons, with different titles. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVa9eH3qLi6x1dyESXd3O1iZwBgvSvXMc-5Qp1--N4zgA3UojhjmYOm703eoxj_ubBRotj0W3GyimcqHdG4-cnnBQClT1robYe1h8jsiyAtzkGIjifKPiJhmpfR-zwRNN-gWCT2HxG_ZEdbvnICi-761qVN9lMtXt9xjJjU_JQb-pGoojJiw/s1000/mr%20toad.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVa9eH3qLi6x1dyESXd3O1iZwBgvSvXMc-5Qp1--N4zgA3UojhjmYOm703eoxj_ubBRotj0W3GyimcqHdG4-cnnBQClT1robYe1h8jsiyAtzkGIjifKPiJhmpfR-zwRNN-gWCT2HxG_ZEdbvnICi-761qVN9lMtXt9xjJjU_JQb-pGoojJiw/s320/mr%20toad.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Under the title of the original novel, <i>The Wind in the
Willows</i>, the Mr. Toad story appeared as the first season episode 15 in
February 1955. The saga of the
overenthusiastic Mr. Toad of Toad Hall begins when his animal friends try to
dissuade him from causing expensive mayhem by driving his yellow horsecart with
reckless abandon. But Mr. Toad is
distracted from contrition and reform by the sight of a brand new wonder, “a
motor car!” I can remember how he said
those words, and the look in his astonished, ravenous eyes as he said them,
from that day to this.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The well-known Basil Rathbone (the Sherlock Holmes film
series) narrates the tale, and Mr. Toad was voiced by Eric Blore, who in the
intervening decades I’ve come to admire as a comic genius in supporting film
roles of the 30s and 40s, particularly the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers classic <i>Top
Hat.</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> The Ichabod Crane story, again under its original title of
“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” a short fiction by Washington Irving, appeared
in a second season episode in October 1955.
This is a more sinister, New England Puritan tale, that we knew by the
name of the character that most attracted our attention, the Headless
Horseman. Notably it doesn’t have a
happy ending. The ghost story quality
is balanced by a comic approach to Ichabod and a breezy narration by Bing
Crosby.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw-h8xjfiTsj7CMyd1PgAzN9hlEp_nomRJHnJ_jGZeyK4zlH1Qhz6Gz7OhszjUD4TlHGACodfu50tZGlN9MQr-svx20qwj1TbuywU43e15Sr_023I6Dz0WBAO5bdS-ShjjNo56lfpxHliyDoVvJySg1PZBzwa-3z7IWQKryxlO9sK08hT99Q/s780/10.31.1956-the-plausible-impossible-1180x600-780x440.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="780" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw-h8xjfiTsj7CMyd1PgAzN9hlEp_nomRJHnJ_jGZeyK4zlH1Qhz6Gz7OhszjUD4TlHGACodfu50tZGlN9MQr-svx20qwj1TbuywU43e15Sr_023I6Dz0WBAO5bdS-ShjjNo56lfpxHliyDoVvJySg1PZBzwa-3z7IWQKryxlO9sK08hT99Q/w400-h226/10.31.1956-the-plausible-impossible-1180x600-780x440.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> Using the voices of Bing Crosby and Basil Rathbone,
well-known to adults, didn’t make much difference to children, but Disney
always played to family audiences, never so intently than with his television
show. His discourses on techniques of animation and other factual presentations
were pitched to interest parents as well as their children. They, after all,
had probably seen these classic movies in their own childhoods. By starting his
hour at 7:30 p.m., Disney bridged the traditional children’s hour with the
start of adult prime time. And by
getting parents interested, it helped insure that their children wouldn’t be
prevented from watching. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Showing a more or less complete animated feature such as <i>Alice
in Wonderland</i> would turn out to be a rare event on <i>Disneyland</i>. More frequent were the excerpts, along with
background and behind the scenes stories, that whetted young appetites for the
full meal. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNVONhXcVmYDh97kR2B-YdYpNLGz9gT3IwKadXac8EzaXO3J1ALiIusEBx3VeQG8YfKidhv6mvc4s2g0SnpDC1PkaEdaz63LIXnwegctt9-sbj1C2i_huFWIs3RlpazdJsyxQ6pgDAtlYPObWbkMPO4n9OdSZeIafCL71LQQxxiT8hcrHBTw/s800/lady%20and%20the%20tramp.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNVONhXcVmYDh97kR2B-YdYpNLGz9gT3IwKadXac8EzaXO3J1ALiIusEBx3VeQG8YfKidhv6mvc4s2g0SnpDC1PkaEdaz63LIXnwegctt9-sbj1C2i_huFWIs3RlpazdJsyxQ6pgDAtlYPObWbkMPO4n9OdSZeIafCL71LQQxxiT8hcrHBTw/s320/lady%20and%20the%20tramp.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>That technique was first on display in the first season’s
sixth episode in December 1954, “A Story of Dogs,” which detailed the making of
the upcoming animated theatrical feature, <i>Lady and the Tramp</i>. Fully
completed key scenes were the hour’s climax.
A later episode in February showed how the music for the film was
created, with more scenes. By the time
the movie came to local theatres that summer of 1955, we were eager to see it.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> This approach worked not only for new movies but for
previously released films, especially those that were re-released to theatres
in the 1950s. So we got programs that
discussed and showed pieces of <i>Snow White</i> and <i>Cinderella</i>—big hits
for the studio—but especially movies
that didn’t do so well on their first run, like <i>Fantasia</i> and <i>Pinocchio</i>
(both from 1940) as well as an originally lesser hit, like <i>Bambi</i>
(1942.) These programs preceded their
theatrical re-releases (<i>Pinocchio</i> in 1954, <i>Fantasia</i> in 1956 and <i>Bambi</i>
in 1957.)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmlAF-qD_wuvIeCbiIHUhbIQe9EjrMpqyw9SWM7m1HVF_KsM0B0HEz4Wm81WPelbhGYUfx_bEJeAjephH6xa-JScLHBDlsSIT13dMiL-PYBLgJ7g18wqm9rnqSfKXzCIWoirK4ftRhVNF8w9ZF-s7iiw56gAwcQK3mYej6rxxRJbtLX_WPSw/s275/pin03.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmlAF-qD_wuvIeCbiIHUhbIQe9EjrMpqyw9SWM7m1HVF_KsM0B0HEz4Wm81WPelbhGYUfx_bEJeAjephH6xa-JScLHBDlsSIT13dMiL-PYBLgJ7g18wqm9rnqSfKXzCIWoirK4ftRhVNF8w9ZF-s7iiw56gAwcQK3mYej6rxxRJbtLX_WPSw/s1600/pin03.jpg" width="275" /></a></div> We all loved <i>Pinocchio</i>, even as it touched a nerve in
donkey-inclined little boys (who lacked a Jiminy Crickett companion), but
though the TV show got us into the theatre for <i>Fantasia</i>, it did not
prevent a bad boy rebellion all around me after an hour of the Saturday
matinee. I remember being bored by some of it, but mostly fascinated by the
visuals as they worked with the music.
We weren’t used to classical music, so even what I now recognize as
conductor Leopold Stokowski’s bombastic approach didn’t make us much more
comfortable. Seeing it today is a mixed
bag of brilliance and kitsch. <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO0FXiU7v1aiCDipDAGQGXW1CWd77tKB6BoB5zawJxjXzJ1MDxMMY-_wmGzs65KSiiw5Riw3BMoOb7m5XdRaH-l9FI5u3M4mQbm4umv5hW8Oc0Bf543pxqE-iFhIjON9qJldlmsgHq_T7KPHN9FRZ4RscWS-W1lvPSsYjNN_cb2vjXRza1Mg/s800/bambi.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO0FXiU7v1aiCDipDAGQGXW1CWd77tKB6BoB5zawJxjXzJ1MDxMMY-_wmGzs65KSiiw5Riw3BMoOb7m5XdRaH-l9FI5u3M4mQbm4umv5hW8Oc0Bf543pxqE-iFhIjON9qJldlmsgHq_T7KPHN9FRZ4RscWS-W1lvPSsYjNN_cb2vjXRza1Mg/s320/bambi.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Watching excerpts of <i>Bambi</i> on TV prepared us for some
of the hardest moments when we saw it at the movies. Though it has since become
a cynical epithet, <i>Bambi</i> was such a powerful experience that I’ve almost
repressed seeing it. Small wonder that
AFI named it the third best animated film of all time—and Time Magazine
included it in its top 25 horror movies.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> In its initial release in 1942 however, <i>Bambi</i> had
indifferent box office, and did even worse in its first re-release in the late
40s. But after its exposure on
Disneyland, it did very well in its 1957 return to theatres, doubling the box
office of its previous revival.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9tZDQquwUNLdpY-gw8sd4R_xrdDi0mHiEMyDTus6OF4LEVtD9kVtdZr6F0sYpQVOgzA44e58kIsL0uO7IP5-hgkJYuQDI0tMhcPeLvyGVV_0aUmMATC6H30usO7puT0ZYbhsbedSWhNgHmIPnIz17-grvs6eJ0pvH06gy1ywLISa7KbW2RQ/s590/disney-peter-pan-1348725.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="590" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9tZDQquwUNLdpY-gw8sd4R_xrdDi0mHiEMyDTus6OF4LEVtD9kVtdZr6F0sYpQVOgzA44e58kIsL0uO7IP5-hgkJYuQDI0tMhcPeLvyGVV_0aUmMATC6H30usO7puT0ZYbhsbedSWhNgHmIPnIz17-grvs6eJ0pvH06gy1ywLISa7KbW2RQ/s320/disney-peter-pan-1348725.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> The <i>Disneyland</i> TV show became so effective in reaching
huge potential audiences that the usual practice of re-releasing the animated
features every seven years or longer was accelerated in several cases. For
instance, <i>Peter Pan</i>, first released in 1953 just before <i>Disneyland</i>
started, went back to theatres in 1958. <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Then there’s the case of the
film-that-must-not-be-named. <i>Song of
the South</i> (1946) added animation to a live action story about a boy
visiting a Georgia plantation after the Civil War, where he meets a
sharecropper, Uncle Remus, who tells him animal stories that apply to the
problems he’s having on his visit. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Disneyland devoted an hour in its second season (January
1956) to the history of Joel Chandler Harris, who wrote the Uncle Remus
tales. Excerpts were shown from the
movie, particularly the “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” song sequence. The song won the Academy Award, and James
Baskett, who sang it and played Uncle Remus, won a special Oscar. <i> </i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0GZKVSJnvDNrsZ76VAB4ZsJlxQ-EdC3noYFdOXwB96El41cjltjYp9sKTvA8GgZ2JFGYqwzsqWELyAjCB4zknGhPxN7I56iwrdEbaT2uhuX8vZdhg_MyDZIKRmsj88p_UDTfysTcU_B5XNzth5L-AVnuwnrN4d3-6e24lgRF_vHC1rut3iA/s279/south03.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="181" data-original-width="279" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0GZKVSJnvDNrsZ76VAB4ZsJlxQ-EdC3noYFdOXwB96El41cjltjYp9sKTvA8GgZ2JFGYqwzsqWELyAjCB4zknGhPxN7I56iwrdEbaT2uhuX8vZdhg_MyDZIKRmsj88p_UDTfysTcU_B5XNzth5L-AVnuwnrN4d3-6e24lgRF_vHC1rut3iA/s1600/south03.jpg" width="279" /></a></i></div><i>Song of the South</i> was re-released to theatres later
in 1956, and had several subsequent re-releases for the next 30 years. But it has since vanished. It is never shown in theatres, television or
any of the Disney streaming channels, and is not available on home video in
the US. To my knowledge only the
“Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” song and the attached animated tale is on DVD, as part of
the 1950 Christmas show <i>for Alice in Wonderland </i>(a DVD extra.) Bobby Driscoll (who played the boy in the
film) asks the Magic Mirror to show it. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Disney knew it could be a sensitive subject when he made the
movie, and tried to ensure it would not be racially offensive. However it later
became politically unpalatable because of objections to its portrayal of black
characters, particularly (I gather) the dialects employed. It’s difficult to describe this, since I
don’t remember the film—except for the song that we loved and sang all the
time. Whoopi Goldberg is among those
suggesting it be shown again and discussed and evaluated now. But we’ll return to this in a later
discussion of the whole topic of ethnic humor and 1950s TV.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtgZkiqA6USD9QcpDiB7jqff-Ou3_a-ppvmXy1ACx3uEc_BwEWBoKGh_KqBYJ1zc7yOn8knB0MZQu25JERRgQHDTfmZdorleVClaiK1ulOdvcGogPujck6A6bdakv42jni5RHtCEQyUBMTMho0Qe029yJ5u0FcxleG0NiH2CgS7WccCxNoHQ/s254/pp%20book.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="254" data-original-width="198" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtgZkiqA6USD9QcpDiB7jqff-Ou3_a-ppvmXy1ACx3uEc_BwEWBoKGh_KqBYJ1zc7yOn8knB0MZQu25JERRgQHDTfmZdorleVClaiK1ulOdvcGogPujck6A6bdakv42jni5RHtCEQyUBMTMho0Qe029yJ5u0FcxleG0NiH2CgS7WccCxNoHQ/s1600/pp%20book.jpg" width="198" /></a></div> Fantasyland on TV also combined with Fantasyland in the park
that opened at the end of the first TV season in 1955, in a circle of reified
and reinforced imagery and stories.
Disney merchandise, books (Golden Books, comic books, guides to
animation, etc.) and newspaper comic strips were also involved.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> But to kids in the 1950s all this populated a world of
discovery, of play, and of stories--all new to us, even if a little familiar
from fairy tales, Golden Books and My Book House. Fantasyland presented what Walt Disney had done from the
beginning: animating tales and creating animated characters. But he’d since gotten involved in other
areas of filmmaking and storytelling, which then became a major part of <i>Disneyland</i>
television. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">By the time the TV show came along, I was starting to age
out of the prime animation audience, so these (mostly) live action shows were
just as influential on my childhood—perhaps more so, and for longer… For there
were three other lands. And one of them
almost immediately produced an effect that shook Hollywood to its foundations.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <i>---To Be Continued...</i></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0