Tag: Andy Griffith

Don’t We All Need a Cruise On The S.S. Minnow?

In reliving the memories of Baby Boomer television, you really didn’t think I’d forget about Gilligan’s Island, did you?

Of all the improbable, unrealistic and oh-my-this-is-beyond-stupid shows we watched as kids, this could be in the top three of all time. Didn’t the Captain and his “little buddy” Gilligan ever think that naming a boat the Minnow might portend a bad outcome in a storm? Hello, how about Jaws or Orca?

The Jetsons were far more believable to me than this crew of castaways. A family living in the space age with robots, no problem.

Castaways on a desert island three hours off Hawaii, give me a break. They lived better than most people in the third world, and Ginger never ran out of makeup or hairspray. Too bad there was no Amazon. If there had been they would have been found and saved. That little smiling truck would have pulled right up to the shoreline and delivered the goods.

The castaways built a radio, huts, and cooked up some unbelievable recipes with coconuts, yet they couldn’t find the wherewithal to build a boat. Not enough trees on that deserted island? Even though one of them was a professor? Noah built an entire ark the size of a small city!

Of course, I’m not the first or even the thousandth to mention how highly laughable this fairy tale was.

However, it just made me rethink the sixties and how desperate we must have been for escape that we actually used Gilligan’s Island as a vehicle.

Times must have been pretty crazy off that TV screen.

Yes, I get it. The whole you-have-to-go-along with the joke thing. Yet I just find it more and more difficult to allow myself that luxury.

Even today watching shows like FBI or any police tale, it seems so improbable how the characters act when they are chasing criminals. No one even covers the back door. So, of course we always hear, “they went out the back,” and the chase begins. Give me a break. Is that really what you learned at Quantico?

Or a single cop going in to chase a perp with no partner or back up. Sure, that could happen. But not in this world!

Why do I find myself more familiar with the rules of law enforcement that the writers?

Hey, there’s a terror attack in Times Square. Quick, go to a pizza joint and find two cops to check it out. Are you kidding me? In what world could that happen?

The whole police force would be there like an army. At least they used to. Now with the new mayor of New York, who knows?

It just seems so silly to me I can’t seem to overlook the craziness of it all.

Yet, I overlooked the fact that Ginger worn a ball gown she brought on a three-hour cruise, that a professor couldn’t build a boat and that the Howells lived like Charles and Camilla in a hut?

What could we possibly be escaping from in the sixties that was more frightening than today’s world and yet… and yet.

Perhaps we can’t buy into so many of these premises anymore because we’ve seen so much more real-life craziness.

Let’s face it, we had no Internet, social media and only three news shows a night to choose from. If Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley or Peter Jennings didn’t report it, it didn’t happen. End of story.

We watched police behave like Toody and Muldoone in Car 54 Where are You? Or Andy Griffith in Maybury, where Barney got all bent out of shape and insisted on a public hanging if someone jaywalked.

Yes, we had Dragnet and Jack Webb emphasizing, “Just the facts, Mam.” Or tough cops like Broderick Crawford on Highway Patrol we believed were authentic. We were afraid of police despite Barney Fife.

After all, did Jack Webb look like a guy that couldn’t handle whatever came his way? And what about the granddaddy of all crime shows, The Untouchables? Was there ever anyone like Eliot Ness? Staunch in his dedication, devoted to his duty and as honest as the Dalai Llama.

We believed he’d clean up the town, arrest every bad guy and protect us from those bootlegging bad guys.

In the end was it because we simply became so attached to our TV screens that whatever appeared we embraced?

Was life so hard in the fifties and sixties? Sure, there were difficult times with lots of stress. Polio, the cold war, assassinations, Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher splitting up.

So, we watched Gilligan and anything that came on the air, buying into every bit. We were so enthralled with having TV screens in our home we ate up every morsel, believable or not.

We remained optimistic that Gilligan would eventually find a way off that island. That Ginger’s face would break out in zits, and the Professor would take his eyes off Mary Ann’s short shorts long enough to build that boat. Were we naïve or just simply enjoying this new medium that allowed everyone to sit down, be together and escape the outside world?

Was it easy to laugh or were we simply that unsophisticated we found humor and excitement in the characters on the screen? Yet today, it doesn’t seem so easy to buy in. Have we become so jaded that we can’t accept the improbable anymore? Or has the improbable become our new reality? Kinda hard to top politicians for entertainment and pure horror.

As time moved forward into the seventies the shows became more gritty and violent. It got pretty real and a bunch of loons on a desert island wouldn’t make the cut. Or was Gilligan just the precursor to Survivor?

So do the times dictate what we will watch or the shows create the times? Was watching Lee Harvey Oswald murdered in front of our eyes the beginning of reality tv?

Is television a mirror image of life or an exaggeration for entertainment’s sake?

Did we turn to shows like Gilligan for a reprieve from the outside world or to reinforce our belief in innocence? Hasn’t the human race always been eager to laugh at the outrageous and bizarre?

Watching Gilligan on that peaceful island allowed us all to suspend rational thought and just go with the flow and the silliness of their plight.

Perhaps deep inside we were cheering for him to stay there. For that crew to continue to enjoy their desert island in anonymity and uncomplicated joy. Finding a desert island and hiding away sounds even more seductive in these times. After all, Gilligan did always find a way to screw up their potential escapes off the island. Just an observation.

Yep, does sound nice. Maybe that’s why cruises are so popular. They’re no desert island, but at least there’s a boat that works and will hopefully get you home. And a cruise does offer a lot more food choices than a coconut.

Still, knowing the number of fifties and sixties shows, including Gilligan that are watched on reruns daily, maybe more silly is exactly what we all need. Let me see now, The Real Housewives of anywhere or Gilligan’s Island? Okay, no brainer, Mary Ann, cut me another piece of pie, please.

I Dream of Life Inside Jeannie’s Bottle

Does art imitate life or vice versa. It might be either. Do I believe that? Is art the driver of life or merely a reflection? I actually believe it’s both.

Art will push the boundaries of what’s acceptable and at times use imitation as creation.

Fifties and sixties television is a perfect example.

The norm at the time was women in the home. Men ruled the roost and women cooked the roast.

TV perpetuated these stereotypes with gusto.

Fifties Moms were portrayed as neat, well dressed, always coifed and able to perform their duties.

They kept a clean house, cooked healthy meals always adhering to the food pyramid, and considered their husbands the authority on the world outside the home.

Each lived and existed within their domain.

Fifties women were no more than updated cavewomen who cooked the game hubby provided and kept the cave clean and tidy.

I remember a Donna Reed show where there was a plumbing problem.

Her husband was busy so he couldn’t get around to the issue quickly enough to suit her. Donna Reed actually took it upon herself to call a plumber and deal with the leak.

When her husband learned she had “handled” the problem he was surprised. So complimentary that she had stepped out of her comfort zone to deal with a man’s job.

WOW. Can you imagine. A fifties Mom actually made a phone call to a plumber? How incredibly bold and modern of her. What will women accomplish next?

There were specific attitudes that not only reflected the times, but embraced and exploited them.

Samantha wasn’t allowed to be herself and took scolding after scolding from stupid Darrin if she dared use her magic powers. Unless of course they suited his needs.

Don’t even start me on a half-dressed Jeannie in that bottle. Can you say, every man’s fantasy? And she called Larry Hagman Master. Subtle? I think not.

Ozzie and Harriet even kept the father at home so he could be on-site overlord. No one ever seemed to ask or care how Ozzie paid the bills while he sat around in his cardigan sweater.

Father Knows Best is so obvious need I say more?

Even westerns were in on the joke. Cowboy shoots up the town, sheriff arrests badman and saves the women and children.

Yes, we knew the rules and the playbook, and although we grew slightly uncomfortable with it, we didn’t make waves. At least not yet.

TV and movies of the day were much the same except movies tended to push the envelope. They could because they weren’t entering your home.

If you wanted to see a racy movie like The Best of Everything, you went out and paid. And one of the reasons it was considered “racy” was it featured women working in a man’s world and alluded to sex. Tsk Tsk how revolutionary.

Movies could change mores, but Doris Day is proof that didn’t happen as much as was necessary. In the movie The Thrill of it All with James Garner, Doris is offered a position to be the face of a soap company.

Garner was upset because she wasn’t home to greet him at night like a tail-wagging cocker spaniel. He devised a plan to get her pregnant so she’d have to quit and stay home. Seriously?

Yes, men in movies could be portrayed as buffoons and television did begin to allow some to be portrayed that way. But always in a comic way.

Hello, Barney Fyfe. But Andy, who was a father, was the responsible and mature one of the pair. Always ready with sage advice for Opie and an endless supply of patience for Barney’s shenanigans.

Yes, there were certain expectations and no one complained much. Until they did.

As women began to explore life outside of the home television began reflecting more women at work.

The seventies had programs about policewomen, executives and bosses instead of just secretaries and housewives.  

The women’s movement effected not only the times, but the entertainment.

Women could be strong, bold and dynamic. It became no shock to anyone anymore that we were capable of calling a plumber to fix a leak. Or that fathers knew best only because Moms usually let them think that was true.

Art has never been fully aware of how much it affects the norms.

After a lifetime of watching television, going to movies and absorbing the intake, I see things clearly.

Yes, art imitates life, but it also seals the norms place in society.

No, viewers do not run out after seeing a cop show and rob a bank or become violent felons.

However, it does have negative impacts on the world.

By bombarding viewers with violence, crime and horrible people, the shock value wears off quickly.

Shock value is an important element in that it draws a line in the sand between what is acceptable and what is absolutely not.

The more we become accustomed to seeing evil, the more accepting of it we become.

Like a comic who uses the F-bomb over and over and it eventually loses its meaning.

No one is surprised anymore that politicians lie, in fact we expect them too.

Society is no longer shocked or shaking their heads by crime and violence. After all nothing could scare us as much as the evening news.

It’s as if we’ve come to expect the worst. And learned to live with it.

Can we blame this on television when network execs did fight valiantly to keep Mom home and Dad believing he was king of his domain?

Or was it inevitable that after seeing so much brutality in movies and on television we became too blasé about it.

That Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry became entertainment instead of a warning of cities turning into future war zones?

We’ve learned to tolerate evil because it was so easily allowed into our world. Crime, violence, harsh language, corruption and dishonesty are almost expected as part of the genre.

Perhaps we were just kidding ourselves all along. Buying the fairy tale that as long as Donna Reed was in her high heels and pearls stirring oatmeal, and Ozzie was in his cardigan chatting with Thorney, all was right with the world?

Or was art just a reflection of a world that changed so quickly we never saw it coming. One we had no desire to accept into our lives.

No wonder people watch reruns of the old shows and sigh at how uncomplicated life was then. All problems could be solved in half an hour.

Jeannie’s bottle sounds like a pretty good hiding place to me now. Move over Barbara, and could you teach me how to nod your head and conjure up dinner, please.