The Rilly Big Shew

My plans to delve into the Shadow are on hold until I have free time for a longer post. As we near Halloween, my thoughts turn to the scary icons of my childhood. Also, I was struck by my friends Cliff's blog on growing up with television, so I wanted to revisit my Strange Interlude post of month's back. Prepare for a ramble...

Cliff had talked about the fact that, in an era when we had--if you were that lucky with reception--a half dozen TV local stations, you tended to watch shows you wouldn't bother with otherwise. Choices were few--and we wanted to watch that box just as much as our modern counterparts do--so unless you hit a time of day when there wasn't anything on, you watched what you were given. Afternoon soap time and Sundays were rough and sometimes forced a child to actually do something, but otherwise we watched TV.

I think that was broadening.

Like a macrocosm of the Ed Sullivan Show, TV presented us with something for everyone. You watched and absorbed while you waited patiently for your turn at programming aimed at YOU. I watched Speed Racer and West Side Story, Star Trek and Huntley and Brinkley, Friday Night Frights and Gunsmoke.

Dad loved Westerns and cop shows--not always good ones--and baseball. Mom loved musicals and watched a of of PBS. We all liked comedy/variety; The Smothers Brothers, Laugh-in, and Carol Burnett. But I liked anything with fantasy...

I remember a co-worker a few years my junior laughing at what he presumed was a joke name--Buster Crabbe. As a pre-cable kid, I recall getting permission to stay up late to watch channel 8 show Buck Rogers just before sign-off, or getting up early on a Sunday to watch Flash Gordon. I remember the thrill--and disappointment-- of Friday Night Frights. I missed George Ellis as Bestoink Dooley on Atlanta TV by a few years, my host was Bob Chesson as Dead Earnest. Each week I would hope for an old Universal "A" picture, like Frankenstein or Dracula...or perhaps the original Godzilla. Far more often it was a "sub B" programmer, like Donovan's Brain or Dr. Cyclops...but I watched just the same. It was a BIG DEAL to watch...it was MY TURN. When a classic horror or SciFi movie did make it onto the television it was a huge deal, and I learned to appreciate the artistry of older films it in spite of dated special effects or black and white film (of course, all TV was black and white for most of my youth.)

An old boss of mine commented that the Universal monsters were timeless classics...I no longer believe that. I think the release of those films to TV in the 1950s struck a chord with baby boomers that locked them in as icons in our popular culture, but as a parent trying to share elements of my childhood with my kids, those films of the 30s and 40s have very limited appeal to kids who have 5 channels of cable programming devoted to them whenever they want it. Those films are passing into the land of D. W. Griffith and Buster Keaton. They will always be loved by a core group of film fans, but as popular entertainment, they can't attract the audience of the poorly conceived Van Helsing.

Cable is the entertainment version of a buffet of chicken fingers, corn on the cob, sloppy joes, pizza and cheeseburgers. I know my kids won't go hungry, but they won't learn to appreciate the comfort foods of my youth, the meatloaf and tuna casserole offerings of Harryhausen and Karloff. While it saddens me that my nostalgia may not translate to them, I also fear they may also miss out on some broader horizons along the way. Ben flirted with an interest in film making in college, but I could never get him excited about watching classic directors who defined the visual language of film. He concentrated his film viewing on more popular fan favorites--albeit some of them avant-garde.

If the ease of finding junk food programming on cable prevents them from enjoying the broader range of entertainment I watched with my parents, if they grow up unable to sit through The Music Man or The Maltese Falcon or The Third Man, then my kids will have missed out on some great things. They won't be getting their vegetables from TV like I did.

I had to eat what I was served and I think that has served me well.