I like comedy. To me, the situation comedy shows on regular TV are asinine and juvenile. I just don't see the humor. Almost always there are smart assed kids who are smarter than their parents. And always the "dumb white guy" stereotype, perpetually horny, ogling after some buxom female. I as a gay man got tired of substituting my likes for the straight world. Then TV got "with it" and started having gay characters. But alas, I have yet to find a realistic gay character. To me, these shows just aren't funny. Maybe it's me. Maybes I've turned into an Old Grump. I don't know but what I do know is that I have better things to do with my time than to watch these lame attempts at humor burdened down with too many commercials. My brain turns to mush when I even attempt to get through a half an hour of one of these shows.
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| Two and a Half Men - a horny, whore mongering drug addict - funny? I don't think so |
Now growing up in the Fifties, TV comedy was a whole different thing. In the early Fifties we didn't even have a TV. I remember the first TV on our block (Washington Avenue in Downingtown, Pennsylvania) was owned by my friend Eddie Rose up the street. I used to go up to his house every evening at 6:00 pm to watch "Frontier Playhouse" which played old western movies. If I got up there early enough I could watch "Kukla, Fran and Ollie", a puppet show. We even had a local puppet show called "Willie the Worm." I know, I know, sounds stupid but to this 10 year old, gangly kid living in the poor white section of town, TV was a treat.
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| Me with my cat "Bobby" in front of our old black and white TV - I still have that "deer lamp" - cat is long gone as is that innocent boy looking at you through the past - 1958 |
One of our family's favorite shows was "You Bet Your Life" with Groucho Marx. Looking back on those shows now I realize how sophisticated his comedy was. All Groucho had to do was pause and give a look and you "got"the humor.
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| Groucho with a young Marilyn Monroe (before her nose job) |
You know folks, the best humor is when folks are just themselves. No script, no outrageous situations like cruel mad chef cooking shows or "The Biggest Loser" but just regular, ordinary folks like you and me being ourselves. Oh where is a show like that today?
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| This monster is entertainment? |
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| More like The Biggest Loser |
I guess the closest we can come to something like that is a talk show like David Letterman or Jay Leno. Jon Stewart of Comedy Central and Stephen Colbert occasionally have some good interviews but they are lost among the late hour and the barrage of so many late night shows.
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| The "beav" and (hunky) Wally - oh yes! (by the way, what happened to Tony Dow in his later years, OMG!) |
Am I the only one who longs for those innocent days of shows like "Your Bet Your Life" and other shows like "Father Knows Best", "Leave it to Beaver and the "I Love Lucy" show?
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| Oh God, my favorite all time show every Monday night at 9:00 pm - everything stopped while our family gathered together in front of our 15 inch black and white Philco TV to watch Lucy and her latest antics |
Yes folks, I am forever thankful for the era in which I grew up.
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| The way I thought our family should be, dad dressed in a suit at the dinner table. My dad wore a sweaty, greasy tank top much to my everlasting chagrin - yes, I know this family was only a fantasy but what a nice fantasy for this kid growing up in the Fifties |
