In part one, we briefly discussed how TV changed things forever. Once the big brass band of tiny black and white images marched into eyes and ears, we put all our books down and stared. Oh, no we didn't. That took time.
Ernie Kovacs
In 1949, when we got our first TV, I was four years old. We working-class children didn't have much diversions in those days. Toys didn't talk back; and the few that did sounded as if they were dying from an awful, metallic disease. And who could have imagined then the menagerie that followed? Computers, cell phones, Ipads--lions and tigers and bears. Oh, my! Don't get me wrong--these are among the great technological advances that have improved our lives. We were living in the stone age then; we thought phone booths and dial phones would last forever.
The potential for learning; the ability to communicate almost instantly with anyone in the world; the reception of entertainment of the highest quality--without them many of us would feel as lost as Charlie Sheen locked in a monk's cell.
(There is, of course a downside to everything: an example of the misuse of technology--there are many--is described in a short essay, "My Walt Whitman Moment," accessible --via the internet!-- on this blog.)
I don't want to descant, I don't want to rant; I would just like to briefly relate how TV changed my life and provide a little glimpse of how things were before it's too late.
Although its words will remain in the cloud, this body that thinks them approaches a shroud. It's time to write a few memories down with the reader, young or old--that means you--foremost in my mind
2.
In the early fifties, television was a family affair. That soon changed, as the networks added programs, some for kids, some for adults. Saturday morning was reserved for children. Howdy Doody, Buffalo Bob and the peanut gallery became staples. One show, The Buster Brown Show, featured a goofy Andy Divine, who attempted to tell a story. He would say something like, "Yesterday I met my new neighbor while I was on the way to the movies. He was walking his poodle, and I said, 'Howdy, neighbor--,' whereupon he was interrupted by a talking puppet of a frog who completed his sentence with something like, "--which one of you is the dog?" The camera then flashed to the audience of children screaming with delight. The frog didn't look anything like Kermit. He looked malicious and swayed to and fro with schadenfreude as he tripped up poor Andy. I forgot the name of the show, but an appropriate title would have been, "Little Brats in Training." Kids, with Froggy Gremlin as their model, were getting their first lessons on how to be sarcastic. We didn't talk back to adults in those days, but, with Froggy's help, we soon did. Our incipient rudeness was as accomplished as a five year old hesitantly playing jingle bells on the piano with one hand; it took a generation before kids dared play the scales of talking back to Mom and Dad up and down the keyboard like cross and spoiled Franz Liszts.
Another children's show, I forget its name as well, gives a good indication of 1950s TV technology. We had to get mom or dad to send away for a kit so we could interact with the TV. I was so happy when it came in the mail! It contained a little transparent plastic cover , which we taped onto the TV screen. Then we took a magic marker and, following the instructions of the program's host, would trace lines and circles that began to appear on the screen. After we had been instructed, say, to trace out two circles and fill them in with a yellow marker, we were told that the fun was about to begin. Suddenly the circles became the noses of two clowns; then they'd become the wheels of a car; then they'd turn into balloons on a string, each of which was held by a cartoon child. If the tech-savvy gremlins of today could have seen my amazement, what would their comments have been? "LOL! OMG!" I remember one Saturday when I couldn't find the little plastic protective covering. Refusing to miss all the fun, I traced the morning's worth of squiggles directly onto the TV screen. My mother, with good reason, was irate. I washed off the marks as best I could. Froggy Gremlin didn't make a sound; if he grumbled at all, he ketpt his grumbles inside.
Our family began to be hooked. We watched more and more shows, and now not always together. Nightly activities began to center on TV shows. For instance, our English setter, Spooky,(1948-1962), the dog of my life, gave birth to seven pups in our living room in about 1954 while we watched The Sid Caesar Show. "How many now?" my brother asked. "We'll check during the next commercial," I replied.
The programs proliferated--My Little Margie, Our Miss Brooks, Gunsmoke,The Today Show hosted by David Galloway and his chimp. Mugs, As The World Turns and, my grandparent's favorite, The Lawrence Welk Show, etc. I was especially fond of The Ernie Kovacs Show. Although his career was short-lived--he died in a car crash--he was important in the development of the medium, and often broadcasted innovative, albeit weird, clips such as this one:
3. I Continued to Love Lucy
In those days, before DVDs, NetFlix, etc. you only got to watch things once. (My nephew, Roger, who is making a film, recently told me that he had seen Casablanca about fifty times!) Much as primitive photosensitive cells, such as those on each limb of a starfish, eventually evolved into eyes, the starfish phase of what currently enables my son's roommate to binge watch old episodes of Frazier, began in 1954, with the advent of Million Dollar Movie, which premiered on a New York TV station, WOR-TV channel 9, in 1955. It showcased one movie every day for an entire week, sometimes broadcasting it twice daily. It began with the theme song from Gone With The Wind; the Million Dollar over-the-top version which I heard so many times will remain in my betz cell library for as long as it exists. Here is how the program began:
In 1955, Lucy was my idol still; when I found out from our copy of TV Guide that the feature film for the following week on MiIlion Dollar Movie would be an old movie staring Lucille Ball, I could hardly wait to see it. The movie in question was a 1942 version of a Damon Runyon story entitled, "The Big Street" starring Lucille Ball, the young Henry Fonda, and, among others, Agnes Morehead. The first time we watched it together as a family; I subsequently watched it every day after school for a total of about five times. I didn't quite understand the film, but certain snippets from it were permanently deposited in my memory bank. After renting a copy of the film from Netflix and watching it with my wife a few days ago, and watching it for the first time in over sixty years, I will close with a summary and review of the film from a perspective very different from the one I had decades and decades ago. (Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan? Where are the snows of yesteryear? Melted. Thank God.)
4. The Big Street
The Big Street was adapted for the screen from a short story by Damon Runyon, who was a well-known journalist and writer at the time.. The name of the story is "Little Pinks;" It appeared in the January 1942 edition of Collier's Magazine, a once popular magazine. The movie was made the same year; the screenplay by one Leonard Spigelgass, must have been written very quickly. Runyon wrote sentimental stories, mostly about the demi-monde of Broadway and of those involved in the entertainment industry. His stories were centered in New York; the distinctive style of his writing, called "Runyonesque," attempted to capture the no-nonsense argot of tough NewYorkers. "Runyonesque" at its best is quaint and out-dated; at its worst it is unintentionally ridiculous. An example: As the arrogant Gloria Lyons (Lucille Ball), now an impoverished invalid, is carried by Pinks (Henry Fonda) into her new and humble digs, she must pass by the loving but unglamorous Violette (Agnes Morehead) who has been helping her; Gloria dismisses her with the following words: "How's your tapeworm, Sister?" That's all you need to know, I think, about the once famous and now entirely forgotten folderol called Runyonesque.
The film itself might be classified by a well-traveled critic--who has had a few drinks--as an example of Alabaster Bolllywood--that is, glamorous inanities with music and an all-white cast. A brief summary of the plot: Gloria Lyons, (played by Lucille Ball, who was known at that time as "Queen B"--The Queen of B movies), a singer who is even more haughty than she is beautiful, performs in a nightclub owned by a hood, Case Ables. (She is obviously his mistress; censorship in Hollywood films in those days, however, was as strict as censorship in Bollywood films of today. No direct references to mistress-making was allowed. Anyone over twelve, however, had at least subliminal knowledge about the source of Gloria's diamonds. --I was completely unaware of their relationship when I saw the film for the first time(s). I have a good excuse: I was only nine.)
Lucy/Gloria falls for a young dandy named--another example of Runyonesque--Decatur Reed. When she tells Case she has found a better date, he slaps her hard. She falls down the stairs and is, alas! paralyzed for life. Pinks (Henry Fonda) who works in the club as a waiter, not only loves Lucy, he worships her. He and his kindly working-class neighbor, Violette (Agnes Morehead), that good soul with the imaginary tapeworm in her belly, take care of her. Lucy is deathly ill--Metasisizing Paralysis? They sell all her jewels to pay the hospital bills. She is better now, but destitute. (There is a ridiculous scene in the hospital during which Lucy learns she has become an invalid. There she is, all dolled up, sitting up in bed trying to move her hips to a rumba blaring from the radio. After several boot(y)less attempts to wiggle her rump, she realizes that her rumba days are gone forever. She pouts, she cries. In the meantime, Violette has married and moved to Florida. Poor Lucy is cold and wants to join them. Henry has no more money, but if proto-Disneyland is what she wants, proto-Disneyland is what she'll get. He has no choice but to attempt to push her in a wheelchair all the way to balmy Dade County. After hitching rides, they arrive.
Pinks plunks the still ever-so-glamorous yet immobile Lucy on the beach. Guess who passes by? Decatur Reed. When he finds out that she can't move her rump anymore, he can't get away quickly enough. Lucy, in a fit of Grade B movie emotional turmoil, lashes out at poor Pinks, since he's the only one left who listens to her. He can't take it any more and leaves her. Apparently Lucy's emotional state has exacerbated her Intermittent Metastatic Paralysis; she is near death once again. The doctor is not optimistic. Humbled now, Lucy wishes she could play the role of a bejewelled crooner at a big club just one more time. Pinks, of course, doesn't lose any time making her wish come true.
Guess who has a night club, not only in New York, but in Miami as well? Guess who, along with Decatur Reed, has miraculously been transported by bad writing to Miami? Case Ables, mean as ever, agrees to give Lucy her big night. Why? Pinks has uncovered some of his criminal activities and threatens to report him to the police if he doesn't do what Little Pinks tells him. That night, during a lavish Hollywood-style gala attended by the haute monde. Lucy sings her signature song. (The real Lucy couldn't sing; it was someone else's voice.) She sits in a chair, dressed in a beautiful evening gown, big-lipped, big-eyed and pouty as ever. She realizes she loves Pinks now. She's learned her lesson. The hussy inside her is dead; the housewife inside her has triumphed. She tells Pinks that she will be satisfied with a life of knitting as long as they're together. Oh, but only if she could dance one more time! Oh, but only if she could see the ocean one more time as well! I'll help you, says Henry, with fierce determination. After a few halting steps, Lucy dies in Henry Fonda's arms. He carries her, limp as a rag doll, up the swanky, long staircase, while the soundtrack supplies a sorrowful version of Lucy's song; she gets her last wish, and sees, metaphorically at least, the sea.
The movie is even worse than my summary indicates. When Lucy lies in the hospital, gravely ill after she and Henry break up, Henry and friends gather in front of her room. They ask her extremely serious doctor whether she will survive. The doctor gives them the devastating news. "Have you ever heard of--Paranoia?" No one dares speak. They apparently hadn't ever heard of it, but they surmise, from the doctor's expression, that it must be something terrible. The doctor explains: Paranoia is when you pretend you're someone you're not. Oh, it works for a while, but one day you discover the truth and..." You die! When Lucy finds out she is a housewife and not a hussy, it's all over.
Were audiences in 1942 ignorant enough to listen to such rubbish with a straight face? Apparently; the movie received fairly good reviews. Apparently not: The Big Street was released in the same year as the sophisticated Casablanca. The target audience of a Grade B 1940s film was undoubtedly very different from the target audience of a Grade A one.
The nine year old I was once didn't understand the film very well. Lucy, because of her arrogance, was sarcastically referred to as "Your Highness." The little kid really thought she was a princess. He never, however, forgot the words and melody of Lucy's (very mediocre) torch song, "Who Knows?" After watching the film for the first time in over sixty years, I went to the piano and played it. I didn't cry. I laughed.
After the age of ten, my love for Lucy rapidly faded, At the height of my TV craze, I averaged about one or two hours a night. Now I average three or four hours a week. A dose of entertainment here and there is like a daily glass of red wine; it is very pleasant and good for body and soul. In larger does, however--well, you know what can happen then. Lucys continue to amuse us, but abuse us perhaps even more The American Academy of Pediatrics informs us that kids today spend an average of seven hours every day playing video games or watching TV. That's way way too much. Along with entertainment overuse came a whole host of ills plaguing society today: processed foods, obesity, unspoken conversation and unread books, to name only a few. The curmudgeon in me thinks that it is the drug of entertainment that keeps the working class pacified. For many the TV screen (or computer monitor) has taken over their entire field of vision. And yet there is hope: you have chosen to read this essay instead of watching another episode of The Big Bang. I wish I had entertained you better; I hope, however, that I provided some pleasure along with something to think about in a time-proven, wondrous and old fashioned way: with words. May your tribe increase!
Yes, Inner Angel is still optimistic. Inner Curmudgeon looks up for a moment from a book of poems, shakes his head in contempt, and then returns to Keats.
Ernie Kovacs
In 1949, when we got our first TV, I was four years old. We working-class children didn't have much diversions in those days. Toys didn't talk back; and the few that did sounded as if they were dying from an awful, metallic disease. And who could have imagined then the menagerie that followed? Computers, cell phones, Ipads--lions and tigers and bears. Oh, my! Don't get me wrong--these are among the great technological advances that have improved our lives. We were living in the stone age then; we thought phone booths and dial phones would last forever.
The potential for learning; the ability to communicate almost instantly with anyone in the world; the reception of entertainment of the highest quality--without them many of us would feel as lost as Charlie Sheen locked in a monk's cell.
(There is, of course a downside to everything: an example of the misuse of technology--there are many--is described in a short essay, "My Walt Whitman Moment," accessible --via the internet!-- on this blog.)
I don't want to descant, I don't want to rant; I would just like to briefly relate how TV changed my life and provide a little glimpse of how things were before it's too late.
Although its words will remain in the cloud, this body that thinks them approaches a shroud. It's time to write a few memories down with the reader, young or old--that means you--foremost in my mind
2.
In the early fifties, television was a family affair. That soon changed, as the networks added programs, some for kids, some for adults. Saturday morning was reserved for children. Howdy Doody, Buffalo Bob and the peanut gallery became staples. One show, The Buster Brown Show, featured a goofy Andy Divine, who attempted to tell a story. He would say something like, "Yesterday I met my new neighbor while I was on the way to the movies. He was walking his poodle, and I said, 'Howdy, neighbor--,' whereupon he was interrupted by a talking puppet of a frog who completed his sentence with something like, "--which one of you is the dog?" The camera then flashed to the audience of children screaming with delight. The frog didn't look anything like Kermit. He looked malicious and swayed to and fro with schadenfreude as he tripped up poor Andy. I forgot the name of the show, but an appropriate title would have been, "Little Brats in Training." Kids, with Froggy Gremlin as their model, were getting their first lessons on how to be sarcastic. We didn't talk back to adults in those days, but, with Froggy's help, we soon did. Our incipient rudeness was as accomplished as a five year old hesitantly playing jingle bells on the piano with one hand; it took a generation before kids dared play the scales of talking back to Mom and Dad up and down the keyboard like cross and spoiled Franz Liszts.
Another children's show, I forget its name as well, gives a good indication of 1950s TV technology. We had to get mom or dad to send away for a kit so we could interact with the TV. I was so happy when it came in the mail! It contained a little transparent plastic cover , which we taped onto the TV screen. Then we took a magic marker and, following the instructions of the program's host, would trace lines and circles that began to appear on the screen. After we had been instructed, say, to trace out two circles and fill them in with a yellow marker, we were told that the fun was about to begin. Suddenly the circles became the noses of two clowns; then they'd become the wheels of a car; then they'd turn into balloons on a string, each of which was held by a cartoon child. If the tech-savvy gremlins of today could have seen my amazement, what would their comments have been? "LOL! OMG!" I remember one Saturday when I couldn't find the little plastic protective covering. Refusing to miss all the fun, I traced the morning's worth of squiggles directly onto the TV screen. My mother, with good reason, was irate. I washed off the marks as best I could. Froggy Gremlin didn't make a sound; if he grumbled at all, he ketpt his grumbles inside.
Our family began to be hooked. We watched more and more shows, and now not always together. Nightly activities began to center on TV shows. For instance, our English setter, Spooky,(1948-1962), the dog of my life, gave birth to seven pups in our living room in about 1954 while we watched The Sid Caesar Show. "How many now?" my brother asked. "We'll check during the next commercial," I replied.
The programs proliferated--My Little Margie, Our Miss Brooks, Gunsmoke,The Today Show hosted by David Galloway and his chimp. Mugs, As The World Turns and, my grandparent's favorite, The Lawrence Welk Show, etc. I was especially fond of The Ernie Kovacs Show. Although his career was short-lived--he died in a car crash--he was important in the development of the medium, and often broadcasted innovative, albeit weird, clips such as this one:
3. I Continued to Love Lucy
In those days, before DVDs, NetFlix, etc. you only got to watch things once. (My nephew, Roger, who is making a film, recently told me that he had seen Casablanca about fifty times!) Much as primitive photosensitive cells, such as those on each limb of a starfish, eventually evolved into eyes, the starfish phase of what currently enables my son's roommate to binge watch old episodes of Frazier, began in 1954, with the advent of Million Dollar Movie, which premiered on a New York TV station, WOR-TV channel 9, in 1955. It showcased one movie every day for an entire week, sometimes broadcasting it twice daily. It began with the theme song from Gone With The Wind; the Million Dollar over-the-top version which I heard so many times will remain in my betz cell library for as long as it exists. Here is how the program began:
In 1955, Lucy was my idol still; when I found out from our copy of TV Guide that the feature film for the following week on MiIlion Dollar Movie would be an old movie staring Lucille Ball, I could hardly wait to see it. The movie in question was a 1942 version of a Damon Runyon story entitled, "The Big Street" starring Lucille Ball, the young Henry Fonda, and, among others, Agnes Morehead. The first time we watched it together as a family; I subsequently watched it every day after school for a total of about five times. I didn't quite understand the film, but certain snippets from it were permanently deposited in my memory bank. After renting a copy of the film from Netflix and watching it with my wife a few days ago, and watching it for the first time in over sixty years, I will close with a summary and review of the film from a perspective very different from the one I had decades and decades ago. (Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan? Where are the snows of yesteryear? Melted. Thank God.)
4. The Big Street
The Big Street was adapted for the screen from a short story by Damon Runyon, who was a well-known journalist and writer at the time.. The name of the story is "Little Pinks;" It appeared in the January 1942 edition of Collier's Magazine, a once popular magazine. The movie was made the same year; the screenplay by one Leonard Spigelgass, must have been written very quickly. Runyon wrote sentimental stories, mostly about the demi-monde of Broadway and of those involved in the entertainment industry. His stories were centered in New York; the distinctive style of his writing, called "Runyonesque," attempted to capture the no-nonsense argot of tough NewYorkers. "Runyonesque" at its best is quaint and out-dated; at its worst it is unintentionally ridiculous. An example: As the arrogant Gloria Lyons (Lucille Ball), now an impoverished invalid, is carried by Pinks (Henry Fonda) into her new and humble digs, she must pass by the loving but unglamorous Violette (Agnes Morehead) who has been helping her; Gloria dismisses her with the following words: "How's your tapeworm, Sister?" That's all you need to know, I think, about the once famous and now entirely forgotten folderol called Runyonesque.
The film itself might be classified by a well-traveled critic--who has had a few drinks--as an example of Alabaster Bolllywood--that is, glamorous inanities with music and an all-white cast. A brief summary of the plot: Gloria Lyons, (played by Lucille Ball, who was known at that time as "Queen B"--The Queen of B movies), a singer who is even more haughty than she is beautiful, performs in a nightclub owned by a hood, Case Ables. (She is obviously his mistress; censorship in Hollywood films in those days, however, was as strict as censorship in Bollywood films of today. No direct references to mistress-making was allowed. Anyone over twelve, however, had at least subliminal knowledge about the source of Gloria's diamonds. --I was completely unaware of their relationship when I saw the film for the first time(s). I have a good excuse: I was only nine.)
Lucy/Gloria falls for a young dandy named--another example of Runyonesque--Decatur Reed. When she tells Case she has found a better date, he slaps her hard. She falls down the stairs and is, alas! paralyzed for life. Pinks (Henry Fonda) who works in the club as a waiter, not only loves Lucy, he worships her. He and his kindly working-class neighbor, Violette (Agnes Morehead), that good soul with the imaginary tapeworm in her belly, take care of her. Lucy is deathly ill--Metasisizing Paralysis? They sell all her jewels to pay the hospital bills. She is better now, but destitute. (There is a ridiculous scene in the hospital during which Lucy learns she has become an invalid. There she is, all dolled up, sitting up in bed trying to move her hips to a rumba blaring from the radio. After several boot(y)less attempts to wiggle her rump, she realizes that her rumba days are gone forever. She pouts, she cries. In the meantime, Violette has married and moved to Florida. Poor Lucy is cold and wants to join them. Henry has no more money, but if proto-Disneyland is what she wants, proto-Disneyland is what she'll get. He has no choice but to attempt to push her in a wheelchair all the way to balmy Dade County. After hitching rides, they arrive.
Pinks plunks the still ever-so-glamorous yet immobile Lucy on the beach. Guess who passes by? Decatur Reed. When he finds out that she can't move her rump anymore, he can't get away quickly enough. Lucy, in a fit of Grade B movie emotional turmoil, lashes out at poor Pinks, since he's the only one left who listens to her. He can't take it any more and leaves her. Apparently Lucy's emotional state has exacerbated her Intermittent Metastatic Paralysis; she is near death once again. The doctor is not optimistic. Humbled now, Lucy wishes she could play the role of a bejewelled crooner at a big club just one more time. Pinks, of course, doesn't lose any time making her wish come true.
Guess who has a night club, not only in New York, but in Miami as well? Guess who, along with Decatur Reed, has miraculously been transported by bad writing to Miami? Case Ables, mean as ever, agrees to give Lucy her big night. Why? Pinks has uncovered some of his criminal activities and threatens to report him to the police if he doesn't do what Little Pinks tells him. That night, during a lavish Hollywood-style gala attended by the haute monde. Lucy sings her signature song. (The real Lucy couldn't sing; it was someone else's voice.) She sits in a chair, dressed in a beautiful evening gown, big-lipped, big-eyed and pouty as ever. She realizes she loves Pinks now. She's learned her lesson. The hussy inside her is dead; the housewife inside her has triumphed. She tells Pinks that she will be satisfied with a life of knitting as long as they're together. Oh, but only if she could dance one more time! Oh, but only if she could see the ocean one more time as well! I'll help you, says Henry, with fierce determination. After a few halting steps, Lucy dies in Henry Fonda's arms. He carries her, limp as a rag doll, up the swanky, long staircase, while the soundtrack supplies a sorrowful version of Lucy's song; she gets her last wish, and sees, metaphorically at least, the sea.
The movie is even worse than my summary indicates. When Lucy lies in the hospital, gravely ill after she and Henry break up, Henry and friends gather in front of her room. They ask her extremely serious doctor whether she will survive. The doctor gives them the devastating news. "Have you ever heard of--Paranoia?" No one dares speak. They apparently hadn't ever heard of it, but they surmise, from the doctor's expression, that it must be something terrible. The doctor explains: Paranoia is when you pretend you're someone you're not. Oh, it works for a while, but one day you discover the truth and..." You die! When Lucy finds out she is a housewife and not a hussy, it's all over.
Were audiences in 1942 ignorant enough to listen to such rubbish with a straight face? Apparently; the movie received fairly good reviews. Apparently not: The Big Street was released in the same year as the sophisticated Casablanca. The target audience of a Grade B 1940s film was undoubtedly very different from the target audience of a Grade A one.
The nine year old I was once didn't understand the film very well. Lucy, because of her arrogance, was sarcastically referred to as "Your Highness." The little kid really thought she was a princess. He never, however, forgot the words and melody of Lucy's (very mediocre) torch song, "Who Knows?" After watching the film for the first time in over sixty years, I went to the piano and played it. I didn't cry. I laughed.
After the age of ten, my love for Lucy rapidly faded, At the height of my TV craze, I averaged about one or two hours a night. Now I average three or four hours a week. A dose of entertainment here and there is like a daily glass of red wine; it is very pleasant and good for body and soul. In larger does, however--well, you know what can happen then. Lucys continue to amuse us, but abuse us perhaps even more The American Academy of Pediatrics informs us that kids today spend an average of seven hours every day playing video games or watching TV. That's way way too much. Along with entertainment overuse came a whole host of ills plaguing society today: processed foods, obesity, unspoken conversation and unread books, to name only a few. The curmudgeon in me thinks that it is the drug of entertainment that keeps the working class pacified. For many the TV screen (or computer monitor) has taken over their entire field of vision. And yet there is hope: you have chosen to read this essay instead of watching another episode of The Big Bang. I wish I had entertained you better; I hope, however, that I provided some pleasure along with something to think about in a time-proven, wondrous and old fashioned way: with words. May your tribe increase!
Yes, Inner Angel is still optimistic. Inner Curmudgeon looks up for a moment from a book of poems, shakes his head in contempt, and then returns to Keats.
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