40 years later

December 19, 1984.  Everything changed.  Everything got better.  

In a beautiful house
With a beautiful wife

How did I get here?

It doesn't usually work out like this, I know that much.  Thankful, grateful, blessed.

Ding Dong School - NBC - November 17, 1954

YouTube has multiple examples of early television that were before my time, but I still heard about them in my childhood.  Only now am I getting to see shows like Kukla, Fran and Ollie (I knew the song "Here We Are Again" but not until now did I know it was the theme from KFO) and Ding Dong School.  Miss Frances puts me in mind of Fred Rogers in her warm, patient delivery, although without the unconditional positive regard of Mr. Rogers for the very young viewer. 

Of course, there was no PBS back then, and even non-commercial NET was just getting started in 1954, so the show was sponsored, in this case by Ovaltine.  When she slides from the program into the commercial with barely a pause, she uses the same warm tone of voice that signifies she's telling the little members of her audience about another Good Thing.  At least Paul Harvey put a "Page Two" between the content and the sponsor's message.

Thoughts While Scrolling

If Ralph Edwards were alive in 2023, would he be amused to hear the phrase a "bizarre proto-reality show" used to describe his creation, "This Is Your Life"?  

Then, there's a report this week that the Steely Dan song "Dirty Work" is appearing in TV shows, movies, and thousands and thousands of TikTok posts.  "Are Steely Dan Songs Secretly Cool?" asks the title of the article.  The author attempts to answer the question in this writerly paragraph:

To someone steeped in proto-punk and indie of the same era, Steely Dan represented everything unappealing about the excess of the ‘70s studio sound — a band so into cocaine and cleverness that they engineered all the passion and energy out of their music. Their overtly literate lyricism was clever but self-conscious, a far cry from the visceral howl emerging from the heart of punk rock, while their musical inspirations — show tunes, easy listening, jazz, funk, and lounge music — were always handled with a sense of fundamental irony and distance, subverted with strange chords and quirky lines to distract from the music’s foundations in kitsch. No matter how complex the songs were, they always felt too clean to stand out. Like particularly high-end elevator music. 

They know me so well

YouTube recommended the 1966 CBS production of Death of a Salesman, and they were right.  I watched the first 25 minutes during the workday yesterday and the rest after work.  Almost all the things I want to see:  color videotape, and in this case, not a blurry, mushy copy of a copy of a copy, but a sharp color close-to-first-generation videotape; Arthur Miller adapted his own play for the 2-hour block, and the NY Times TV critic said the cuts weren't obvious and made the play even better by tightening it up; the lead roles were played by the original actors from the 1949 production, Lee J. Cobb and Martha Dunnock, and now that they were in their fifties instead of their thirties, it fit better with the ages of the characters.  The network even relaxed its censorship guidelines to permit several four-letter words.  I just got the impression that they wanted to get as close as possible to The Definitive Version of DoaS for the ages.  And 56 years later, I'm glad they did.

9 1/2 stars out of 10.  There were glimpses of a boom microphone at the top of the screen, kind of a hallmark of live television productions in that era.  Wish they'd included the original Xerox commercials, and there was one bit of probably unintentional humor -- it certainly broke the realistic mood -- when the owner of the business played a recording of his children for Willy Loman, and one of the voices was basically Rocky the Flying Squirrel reciting the U.S. capitals.  Well, June Foray was already in the cast in a small role as a woman of easy virtue, so you can see the thought process.  Finally, the kind of acting that would have been perfect for the stage, where the audience can be a couple of hundred feet away, seemed too hot for television and its closeups.  That's a long paragraph to explain a half-a-star ding, and probably too long.

Throwback Thursday: 10 years ago today at Tabby's Place

 

Tinkerbell (November 18, 2011)

Throwback Thursday: Mr. Kelly, 11/6/2005

 

Throwback Thursday at Tabby's Place: Archer, 8/27/17

 

Archer, adopted March 2021

Throwback Thursday at Tabby's Place: Elliot, October 21, 2011

 

Elliot

Throwback Thursday at Tabby's Place: Carrot

Lola the Rescued Cat devoted a post to Thanksgiving 2018 at Tabby's Place, and included was a portrait of Carrot in the solarium.  Not this picture, but in 2021 he still enjoys the fresh air out there.

Throwback Thursday: My ol' pal Charlie

 Charlie (2016)