Somebody mentioned to me the other day that they don't watch anything on prime time television. That's the whole week. Monday through Sunday.
I had to agree. And that's the way it's been for me for years now.
And that got me to thinking about the past. Almost everything can ultimately time-transport me back to my childhood. To the pre-DVR days when I looked forward to television every Sunday night. Just like now.
It would be my challenge every week. If teachers loaded me down with homework, I would stay in the house after school on Friday to get it all done. Who needed to be encumbered by the enormity of a book report or a spelling quiz when you have a very full night of Sunday television? I cleared the decks each and every week to be ready for it all.
And then I 'd hear the fatal words from my mother on a Sunday morning.
"We're going to go and visit Aunt _____ and Uncle ______?"
Shit. Or whatever word would get a bar of soap in a kid's mouth.
I'd have to go into major engineering mode. By around 5:30 PM, I'd start getting tired and/or restless. If that didn't get attention, I'd grab my stomach and/or my head. Gee, I don't feel so good. I'd pull any trick out of my bag to make sure we would get home in time for my Sunday night euphoria in front of the tube.
It always started with "Mister Ed." I was in love with this program and I think it was on around 6:30PM. To this day, I want the show to be rebooted. Or made into a movie. I want to write it. This time, the horse is incredibly politically-incorrect. You’d pay good dollars to see that, right? Back in the day, this was my comedy highlights of the week. After it went off each Sunday, I’d keep singing the theme song over and over and over.
“A horse is a horse, of course, of course, And this one'll talk 'til his voice is hoarse. You never heard of a talking horse? Well, listen to this.”
I’d take my little voice and go as low as I could.
“I AM MISTER ED.”
My throat would hurt. While my grandmother was a fan of the show, she was always done with my rendition of the theme song.
“Oh, shaddup already.”
I'd go from comedy to tears as soon as the Lassie theme song would go on. Talk about a show that pulled your heartstrings every freakin' week. And it was made worse by the constant Campbell Soup ads. They always reminded me of being sick because that's really the only time I ate soup. Ten minutes into the show, Lassie was usually limping.
As soon as I got my own dog Tuffy, I envisioned that I was just like Timmy on the show. Of course, my grandfather never fell down a well. I decided one week to hold my beagle in front of the set to watch Lassie with me. I remember Tuffy's ears being activated when the collie barked. But, unlike the always heroic Lassie, this always prompted Tuffy to run and hide under the bed.
My parents hated that I would watch "Dennis The Menace." I figure they must have thought I would pick up some bratty habits from Jay North. So, I had to go and commandeer the TV set down at Grandma's to get my fix.
Oddly enough, this comedy program provided one of my first exposures to death. Oh, I had already been around for the death of some family members. But, as most TV shows do, their characters became family to me as well. And, in a bizarre way, I was closer to them than my own relatives.
Somewhere later in the show's run, Joseph Kearns, the actor who played Mr. Wilson, died. It actually happened in the middle of the season. Back then, there were a lot more episodes in the can. I remember my dad telling me that the actor died. And, for about another three months, I watched as the once-alive/now-dead Mr. Wilson still appeared in front of me every Sunday night. And, to me, it was all a little sad. And made me think about the finality of the world around me.
This show provided my Sunday night TV time with my mother, who particularly liked it when Walt Disney featured his looks at nature. Hmmm, let's see how a squirrel goes about his day. As for me, I'd endure the hour-long program mainly because, at the end, they always showed you what big Disney movie was coming out to theaters.
Of course, the irony with it all was that, for the longest time, we were watching the "Wonderful World of Color" in black and white. I'd ask the inevitable question and always get the same response.
"Ask your father."
Oh.
"Car 54, Where Are You" was only on for two years of Sundays, but it was perhaps the only TV time I had all week with my father. This was a knock-off of the old Phil Silvers Sgt. Bilko show and ideal for my ex-Army-guy Dad. Even better, the sitcom was shot completely in the Bronx, where my dad grew up. So, in between the laughs generated by Officer Toody and Muldoon, my father would act as tour guide.
"Oh, look, there's my old high school."
"Hey, there's Bathgate Avenue."
"I used to play in that vacant lot."
It was all lost on me.
Of course, everybody has their Ed Sullivan Show moment. Most probably remember it for the debut of the Beatles. As for me, I prefer to recall the hours I spent watching this variety show with my grandparents. Ed always gave you something for everybody. A dog act for the kids. A rock and roll group for the teenagers. A comic for the parents. Some old relic for the grandparents. The performers would run a very wide gamut. And I always loved to hear the knee-jerk reactions from Grandma and Grandpa.
"If I couldn't sing any better than that, I wouldn't try."
"He thinks he's so funny, but he's not."
"Oh, go home already!"
To this very day, I can't stand Tony Bennett mainly because my grandmother despised him so.
"Look at that big schnozzola on that ugly greaseball."
Yeah, politically correct, she wasn't.
I think Grandma finally signed off with Ed Sullivan when Jim Morrison and the Doors showed up. We started to look for something else on another channel and wound up with one of my favorite sitcoms of all time. "The Mothers-In-Law" lasted only two years but it was so much like "I Love Lucy" that I was totally in. Indeed, this is the show that prompted me to try and write funny for the very first time in my life.
And if you don't remember this Sunday night treat at all, I have already written about it. Here's the link from four years ago. The story about my connection with the show gets much bigger.
http://lenspeaks.blogspot.com/2010/08/sunday-memory-drawer-revisiting-mothers.html
And, speaking of color TV...
Here's how I closed my childhood Sunday nights for years.
Arguably, "Bonanza" did more to sell new color television sets than any appliance store salesperson could hope to do. When this show, with its lush filming of the Lake Tahoe area, was the only program broadcast in color, folks clamored to buy one so they too could be enveloped by the splendor of the scenery.
You count my parents in that group. You cannot count my grandmother among those sales.
Actually, my parents took their own sweet time moving out of the black and white TV world. There was one token color television in our family. My aunt had one and we all descended on her living room if ever there was a "must see in color" program. The only problem with her set, which might have been one of the first off the assembly line, is that the colors were never coordinated properly. Grass was blue. Tree trunks were red. Faces were green.
Once my parents were content that the technology had all the bugs worked out, they were buyers. And so, on one March Saturday afternoon, this super clunky Zenith console got delivered to our home. And then, for the rest of the weekend, we watched everything and anything just to see what it looked like in color.
And, unlike my aunt's set, people actually had flesh tones that didn't make them look like third degree burn victims. We absorbed it all. But the focus of that weekend was Sunday night at 9PM on NBC. When we finally could watch an episode of "Bonanza" on our very own color TV.
"Bonanza" was one of the few TV shows that got two floor viewing in my house. My grandmother was watching downstairs and we were tuned in upstairs. I would act as Kissinger. One week, I would watch it with my grandmother and then the next week with my parents. It was a tradition I held to for many years. But, with the purchase of that huge Zenith, I would be multi-conflicted. Black and white vs. color. A major dilemma.
My mother, in a rare display of multi-generational family unity, had a solution. Grandma could come up and watch "Bonanza" in color with us. So, on that first "colorful" Sunday, my grandmother mounted the three flights of stairs to our living room. She sat down and wasn't there more than five minutes into the program.
"This doesn't look right."
She gave a cursory wave at the dastardly television set and went back downstairs. And never returned on a Sunday at 9PM ever again. To the day she died, she was one of the few stalwarts in America who would not cave in to that crazy fad of color TVs.
So, I spent many a Sunday watching "Bonanza" in black and white.
Nevertheless, it didn't diminish my love of this classic western. As I got older, the tradition held, but I came to appreciate that the better episodes were written and directed by co-star Michael Landon, who clearly was a gifted creative force. As soon as Dan "Hoss" Blocker died, the show pretty much lost its cohesiveness. But, given that, it still had an amazing run with close to 500 episodes.
Thanks to DVDs and nostalgia TV networks like Me TV, I can still enjoy all of the shows mentioned above. It takes me right back to the easy chair in my grandmother's house or the floor in front of my parent's Zenith console.
And I realize just how much television is the fascia for our collective lives. On Sunday nights. And the other six days of the week, too.
“A horse is a horse, of course, of course, And this one'll talk 'til his voice is hoarse. You never heard of a talking horse? Well, listen to this.”
I’d take my little voice and go as low as I could.
“I AM MISTER ED.”
My throat would hurt. While my grandmother was a fan of the show, she was always done with my rendition of the theme song.
“Oh, shaddup already.”
As soon as I got my own dog Tuffy, I envisioned that I was just like Timmy on the show. Of course, my grandfather never fell down a well. I decided one week to hold my beagle in front of the set to watch Lassie with me. I remember Tuffy's ears being activated when the collie barked. But, unlike the always heroic Lassie, this always prompted Tuffy to run and hide under the bed.
Oddly enough, this comedy program provided one of my first exposures to death. Oh, I had already been around for the death of some family members. But, as most TV shows do, their characters became family to me as well. And, in a bizarre way, I was closer to them than my own relatives.
Somewhere later in the show's run, Joseph Kearns, the actor who played Mr. Wilson, died. It actually happened in the middle of the season. Back then, there were a lot more episodes in the can. I remember my dad telling me that the actor died. And, for about another three months, I watched as the once-alive/now-dead Mr. Wilson still appeared in front of me every Sunday night. And, to me, it was all a little sad. And made me think about the finality of the world around me.
Of course, the irony with it all was that, for the longest time, we were watching the "Wonderful World of Color" in black and white. I'd ask the inevitable question and always get the same response.
"Ask your father."
Oh.
"Oh, look, there's my old high school."
"Hey, there's Bathgate Avenue."
"I used to play in that vacant lot."
It was all lost on me.
"If I couldn't sing any better than that, I wouldn't try."
"He thinks he's so funny, but he's not."
"Oh, go home already!"
To this very day, I can't stand Tony Bennett mainly because my grandmother despised him so.
"Look at that big schnozzola on that ugly greaseball."
Yeah, politically correct, she wasn't.
And if you don't remember this Sunday night treat at all, I have already written about it. Here's the link from four years ago. The story about my connection with the show gets much bigger.
And, speaking of color TV...
Here's how I closed my childhood Sunday nights for years.
Arguably, "Bonanza" did more to sell new color television sets than any appliance store salesperson could hope to do. When this show, with its lush filming of the Lake Tahoe area, was the only program broadcast in color, folks clamored to buy one so they too could be enveloped by the splendor of the scenery.
You count my parents in that group. You cannot count my grandmother among those sales.
Actually, my parents took their own sweet time moving out of the black and white TV world. There was one token color television in our family. My aunt had one and we all descended on her living room if ever there was a "must see in color" program. The only problem with her set, which might have been one of the first off the assembly line, is that the colors were never coordinated properly. Grass was blue. Tree trunks were red. Faces were green.
Once my parents were content that the technology had all the bugs worked out, they were buyers. And so, on one March Saturday afternoon, this super clunky Zenith console got delivered to our home. And then, for the rest of the weekend, we watched everything and anything just to see what it looked like in color.
And, unlike my aunt's set, people actually had flesh tones that didn't make them look like third degree burn victims. We absorbed it all. But the focus of that weekend was Sunday night at 9PM on NBC. When we finally could watch an episode of "Bonanza" on our very own color TV.
"Bonanza" was one of the few TV shows that got two floor viewing in my house. My grandmother was watching downstairs and we were tuned in upstairs. I would act as Kissinger. One week, I would watch it with my grandmother and then the next week with my parents. It was a tradition I held to for many years. But, with the purchase of that huge Zenith, I would be multi-conflicted. Black and white vs. color. A major dilemma.
My mother, in a rare display of multi-generational family unity, had a solution. Grandma could come up and watch "Bonanza" in color with us. So, on that first "colorful" Sunday, my grandmother mounted the three flights of stairs to our living room. She sat down and wasn't there more than five minutes into the program.
"This doesn't look right."
She gave a cursory wave at the dastardly television set and went back downstairs. And never returned on a Sunday at 9PM ever again. To the day she died, she was one of the few stalwarts in America who would not cave in to that crazy fad of color TVs.
So, I spent many a Sunday watching "Bonanza" in black and white.
Nevertheless, it didn't diminish my love of this classic western. As I got older, the tradition held, but I came to appreciate that the better episodes were written and directed by co-star Michael Landon, who clearly was a gifted creative force. As soon as Dan "Hoss" Blocker died, the show pretty much lost its cohesiveness. But, given that, it still had an amazing run with close to 500 episodes.
Thanks to DVDs and nostalgia TV networks like Me TV, I can still enjoy all of the shows mentioned above. It takes me right back to the easy chair in my grandmother's house or the floor in front of my parent's Zenith console.
And I realize just how much television is the fascia for our collective lives. On Sunday nights. And the other six days of the week, too.
Dinner last night: Still recovering from knee surgery so just an ice cream bar.
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