An update -- and an apology -- on delays
12 years ago
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
A time when TV was much wittier
From the one comment I received about the death of Bea Arthur, it seems that most people reading this didn't seem to understand why I would bother to write about her.
Maybe the YouTube video at the beginning of this will shed some light, or maybe not. Seeing Arthur and the late Rock Hudson performing a duet that could never be done these days in a CBS special sort of says something to me about where we've gone in 30 years.
If you remember, 1980 was back in the very early days of cable television. If I remember correctly, CNN and ESPN hadn't even started yet. The big deal was Home Box Office, and getting Atlanta Braves games -- and their midnight repeats -- on WTBS out of Atlanta.
The culture was much less fractured. It was much closer to the '60s, when you basically had a choice of three channels -- ABC, CBS or NBC -- and that was it. A big show, like "Who Shot J.R." on Dallas in September 1980, could still draw most of the country.
I don't remember this Bea Arthur special, which came after "Maude" and before "Golden Girls," but there's one thing painfully clear about the duet with her and Hudson. It was wittier and more intelligent than anything I've seen on network TV in a long long time.
Jokes about poppers?
Amazing.
Try that these days and you'd have protests from the left and the right.
Why is it I think we had a lot more fun in this country when everyone took themselves a lot less seriously?
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5 comments:
Unbelievable.
They talked about dope that long ago?
I never knew that it was that big an issue almost thirty years ago.
What are you, like 15? You never heard of all the people dropping acid forty years ago, or people smoking pot -- they called it "reefer" -- fifty years ago.
The world doesn't start spinning on the day we're born.
I am almost 21.
And maybe I'm not as smart as you, but I am still shocked that in a national TV show, they sang a song about taking drugs and smoking dope.
Maybe that means I'm stupid or naive, but, dude, it was shocking.
I even asked my parents (who are in their 40's) and even they were no saints, even they were shocked by the clip.
Dude, maybe you just hang out with a fast crowd.
My parents smoked weed and knew people who did coke and other things, but they couldn't believe Bea Arthur and the other guy were singing about getting wasted.
Aaron
The other guy was Rock Hudson, and if you listen to the song, they were talking about how much worse it was now (in 1980) that people were doing that stuff.
Who's Rock Hudson?
Aaron
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