So, the news told me that Ron Palillo is dead at age 63. He was world famous as Horshack from the show “Welcome Back Kotter.” A lot of you may be thinking, “big deal.” But, he had his face on a lunch box. I don’t care who you are; that’s big time. The actor who played Epstein died a few months ago. Travolta and Kaplan are probably sweating. The guy who played replacement sweathog “Beau” is probably too obscure to be bothered with by the conspiracy. I’m hoping Freddie “Boom Boom” Washington is too cool to die.
These deaths bring minor waves of nostalgia. It also hammers home just how much TV I watched as a kid. Hours and hours of the kinds of craptacular shows the networks were shoveling out in the 70s and 80s, particularly the ones that made it to re-runs. So, yeah, occasionally I’m a bit concerned about the amount of time my kids spend in front of a screen. But, honestly, they don’t watch too much TV. Time spent solving a puzzle in a video game has to be better for the brain than any time spent watching “Three’s Company” or “Gilligan’s Island.”
If that stuff wasn’t enough to irreparably rot my brain, I’m guessing Minecraft isn’t doing Cole any long term damage either. Though I do wonder if his generation will have the same kind of generational nostalgia my friends and I seem to get in these situations. Their culture seems more fragmented – albeit in a way that generally features higher quality entertainment than was prevalent circa 1980. Besides that, Horshack is mortal. Mario will never die.
“Time spent solving a puzzle in a video game has to be better for the brain than any time spent watching ‘Three’s Company’ or ‘Gilligan’s Island.'”
That’s a mighty bold statement to make. You’d better hope I don’t come knock on your door to send you on a three hour tour.
OOH! OOH! Did you ever see the Gilligan’s Island where they almost get off the island and then Gilligan screws something up and they don’t do it? Or the Three’s Company episode where there is this big misunderstanding between the three roommates that causes all sorts of hijinks?
Oh wait, that was every episode. :-P
But I did love Welcome Back Kotter. Sorry to hear about Ron’s passing.
Television is an area where I think the free market and competition have really improved things. Back when they were producing dreck like Three’s Company, my understanding is that, because the broadcast spectrum was scarce and because it was worthless without the government intervening to allocate and enforce spectrum rights, the three networks controlled the vast majority of the programming; and government regulations effectively excluded most others from the marketplace.
Their incentive was to produce cheap, generic pablum that appealed to the broadest possible audience. With cable and the Internet circumventing the scarcity issues present with broadcast, programmers are better able to compete for access to niche audiences which has seemingly improved content a fair amount.
There’s still an awful lot of crap out there, but it seems like there is also more quality than in the 70s and 80s when I did most of my TV watching.
I take issue with “Three’s Company” being labeled “dreck”, but I’ll set that aside as a matter of your tastes being wrong. To some degree, I think your argument has merit but it doesn’t fit reality all that well. Consider that TLC, Discovery, History, and their related channels are all variations on a “reality” theme. The advent of 24-hour news has lowered the bar for broadcast journalism. Original shows like “Eureka” get cancelled so that SyFy (ugh) can show more wrestling and movies so bad that even Joel Robinson would walk out.
On the opposite end of the timeline, consider the late 50s and early 60s. There were still the three networks, but you had timeless programming like “I Love Lucy”, “The Dick Van Dyke Show”, “The Andy Griffith Show”, and my personal favorite “Bewitched”.
We’re left to conclude that either the 70s were a low point in our cultural history (and since music peaked in 1976 when Boston’s debut album was released, I find this hard to believe) or that Doug simply does not like the shows of that period.
I have “More than a Feeling” that the apex of music did not occur in the Bicentennial.
The shows on television right now are amazing. TBS, Comedy Channel, USA, Showtime, and HBO have original programming far beyond what has ever existed on the networks. I guess you get what you pay for.
“If that stuff wasn’t enough to irreparably rot my brain ….” The brain-rotted are always the last to know.
I had that coming.
I’m showing my age here, I was in college when Welcome Back Kotter was in its heydey but a good analogy to that is The Andy Griffith Show, which I spent a lot of time watching growing up, and it was one of my grandfather’s favorite shows. The antics of Barney Fife, Aunt Bee, the Darlings, Ernest T. Bass, Otis, Gomer, Goober and the rest of the gang were hilarious, as corny as they were but brought lots of laughs. Andy Griffith’s death earlier this summer sure brought back memories. I had a friend who used to live in Martinsville, VA not too far from Mt. Airy, NC where an Andy Griffith festival was held every year. I was in Martinsville for a visit a few years back but not at the time of the festival. The nostalgia for The Andy Griffith must be pretty strong, apparently they have a good turn out for that every year. My friend doesn’t live in Martinsville any more so I probably won’t be getting down that way, still it’s a slice of Americana from the 60’s.
“Gilligan’s Island” was an update on “Lord f the Rings,” but with fewer, older people. The show was enigmatic. If they were on a three-hour tour, why did the Howells and Ginger have full wardrobes with them? If the professor could make a taxi our of bamboo and agenerator out of whatever was at hand, why couldn’t he make a boat? If it was a three-hour tour, and the Howells were so rich, why weren’t they found by relatively nearby air or sea rescue? This was an anarchistic commune—no government—that functoned internally well enough that no one died. And either the Professor, Gilligan, and the Skipper were sterile, or they or Ginger and Mar Ann were gay. How else do you explain no pregnancies in those three (?) seasons?
Mark,
Do you mean “Lord of the Flies?”