Could everything I learned in childhood be wrong?
Many Marshall McLuhan wannabes, (Can you imagine wanting to be Marshall McLuhan?) or in other words, critics of the media en masse, often refer to television as a vast wasteland. It is seen as a place filled with fluff and trash, with little if any programming that possesses even a modicum of socially redeeming value. I scoff at this notion, and instead, I choose to lay claim before God and country the proposition, that I have in fact learned plenty from television. (Which is a relief because I spent a considerable amount of time sitting in front of it as a youth.)
For example, thanks to television, I know that…
- The opera Rigoletto is about a hunchbacked dwarf who sings in triumph thinking he has his enemy dead in a sack when really it’s his own daughter.
- Pencil lead is really graphite.
- Dick Fredricks was an opera singer for the Metropolitan Opera Company
- In the opera Carmen, the title character is an aggressive and assertive woman who takes what she wants.
- The quote, “The fault lies not in our stars, but in ourselves.” is a famous line from Shakespeare’s immortal Julius Caesar.
How did I learn all of these things? In school? No. From a book? No. From television, The Odd Couple to be exact. Almost everything I know about culture emanates from the great television sitcom starring Tony Randall and Jack Klugman. It made me the cultured raconteur you see before you today.
c_mil i3597″ tabindex=”0″ href=”https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/26/nyregion/tvs-odd-couple-lived-oddly-in-luxury-in-ny.html” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener” data-noload=”” data-ved=”2ahUKEwj_jtCZvMTcAhWF21MKHdSNBCgQjRx6BAgBEAU”> Thank you Oscar and Felix for teaching me about opera, Shakespeare, ballet, cooking, fine wine, and isometrics. I understand that doing isometrics is the equivalent of playing four softball games. Actually I learned all of this from Felix. Thank you Felix. The only thing I learned from Oscar is how to get an ulcer. (New York Times)
[/caption]Despite my praise for all that can be learned regarding television, I have to come clean. The sad truth is that despite whatever cultural references and factual tidbits that I gleaned from The Odd Couple, I’m starting to believe that a lot of the things that I ascertained from watching television in my youth, simply have never come to pass. In other words, as a child growing up in front of our Philco color television, broadcasting six, that’s right count ’em, six television stations, (PlusPBS) thanks to the fact that we lived in the New York City metropolitan area, there were many lessons that I was being schooled on that I figured I would have to be concerned with, or perhaps even learn to navigate as an adult. However, the fact is, few if any of these issues have really had any impact on me throughout my adult life. Could I have been mislead? Did television lie to me? Perhaps it simply exaggerated. At any rate, I’m not sure about you good people, but there’s a lot of issues that I thought I’d be dealing with that simply haven’t materialized. Here are just a few:
Quicksand
Admit it, when you were a child watching adventure themed programming, you were convinced that at one time or another you were going to have to fight your way out of a quicksand related incident. Even “Sheriff Bart,” in the classic comedy/western Blazing Saddles had to save himself and his buddy Charlie from “drowning” in quicksand. What is quicksand, and how come I haven’t ever had to claw my way out of it? Well, if your first guess is that it is a colloid hydrogel, then you deserve a gold star. It’s really nothing more than a fine granular material such as sand, that is mixed with water. Technically, if you’ve ever been to the shore, you’ve watched it get created a countless amount of times. How prevalent was quicksand in popular culture? According to Slate, in the 1960s, 3% of all action/adventure movies featured somebody sinking into quicksand. (Adam West probably saved more damsels from quicksand than any other actor per capita.) The fact is, you really can’t “drown” in quicksand, although you can sink into it up to about your waist. However, if you are holding a tuna or egg salad sandwich, you’re probably going to have to throw it out since it’s about to become very gritty.
597″ tabindex=”0″ href=”https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1MLb5lJI9rogyGCRgMCzYw” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener” data-noload=”” data-ved=”2ahUKEwj9tL2LqcXcAhUOT98KHRJJA2cQjRx6BAgBEAU”> Is it just me, or does it only seem like attractive women are in danger of drowning in quicksand? What, a homely girl is immune to the threat? Or is that nobody would rescue them? By the way, while googling pictures of people drowning in quicksand, I came upon a picture from a quicksand fetish site. In other words, some guys are turned on by watching women drown in quicksand. Maybe we do have too much freedom. (You Tube)
[/caption]Women being tied to the railroad track
In light of the #MeToo movement, and keeping in mind that violence against women is no laughing matter, I still feel the need to point out that not once in my life have I read about a woman being tied to a railroad track as a means for doing her in. Often you read about people attempting to cross a railroad track and getting hit by the train, which is pretty pathetic when you consider that they weren’t even tied down. Sometimes you read about some nut-job pushing some poor unsuspecting soul onto the subway tracks just as a train is arriving, but nobody seems to have the patience anymore to tie somebody down to the tracks, and then wait for the scheduled train to arrive. Let’s face it, we live in a society based on instantaneous gratification, and the time-honored skill of tying a woman down to a railroad track would appear to be a victim of this societal weakness. It would appear that today’s fiendish criminal element could all use a dose of Ritalin.
abindex=”0″ href=”https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/news-photo/actors-hugh-fay-and-charles-arling-tie-louella-maxam-to-a-news-photo/515412294″ target=”_blank” rel=”noopener” data-noload=”” data-ved=”2ahUKEwiA89SwncjcAhVOmK0KHSFNDyQQjRx6BAgBEAU”> “Provided the 10:19 doesn’t run into switch problems at the station in Jamaica, you are in big trouble. ” (Getty Images)
Evicti
[/caption]Evicting old widows by controlling the deeds to their property
It seemed in my younger days that everybody, particularly older woman, were just one mustache sporting fiend away from losing their homes. I never quite understood why these evil “geniuses” wanted these homes in the first place. They were always dingy and small, as well as being located in the crappiest sections of town. Were these Snidely Whiplash wannabes such talented real estate prognosticators that they believed that the neighborhoods these poor widows occupied were going to become gentrified and increase ten-fold in their values? Perhaps, but thanks to Henry Winkler and the reverse mortgage, old ladies should be able to keep their homes for the foreseeable future.
x=”0″ href=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQCapCa0Jjw” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener” data-noload=”” data-ved=”2ahUKEwj4zNiBoMjcAhUFA6wKHVPBD2UQjRx6BAgBEAU”> Thankfully fiends like Silas Barnaby featured in Babes in Toyland are few and far between. However, how come all of those people who felt bad for the old ladies being thrown out of their homes never invited the old broads to stay with them? Talk is cheap. If you want to put your money where your mouth is, invite these old women into your house and see how long that works out for you. Do you like Wheel of Fortune every night blaring at top volume? That’s what I thought. (You Tube)
Train robber
[/caption]Train robberies
I’m not even sure why they used trains in the old west. According to television and the movies, the odds of being on a train that was going to be robbed was somewhere between 100% and definitely. Even Breaking Bad featured a train robbery. Interestingly, when the first locomotive pulled out of Ellicott City, Maryland in 1830, the Tom Thumb was considered a miracle as well as a hazard. After all, how could a human being withstand the “g-forces” that emanated from the unheard of speed of 25 miles per hour? It turns out that it wasn’t fast enough. Robbers on horse back could always catch up it would seem. I’ve ridden on countless trains both in the United States, as well as Europe, and I’ve never once thought about somebody running down the train and robbing it. Of course, in New York City and other big-urban subway systems, the real danger of being robbed or worse exists usually on the platform. Although, now that I think about it, I’ve been robbed unwillingly on a bus, and sort of willingly on a train platform, and both times were in Europe, so I suppose television and movies were trying to tell me something.
Well, if you’re going to rob a train, you should dress the part. This guy’s get-up is only good for one thing, and it’s not making meth. (Getty Images)
Lack of rickshaws
I can’t say I’m surprised by the lack of available rickshaws in America since television and movies only depicted them in Asian societies, but still, when you consider all of the cultural diffusion that has taken place in this great nation of ours thanks to immigration, you would have thought by now that the rickshaw would have been part of the cultural landscape, just like tacos and schmaltz. The closest we seem to have gotten to the mainstreaming of the rickshaw was when the producers of Seinfeld (Who seem to have been greatly influenced by the television of their childhood as well.) dedicated an episode to the rickshaw. Kramer and Newman conspired to make money off of a rickshaw business by having the homeless pull the rickshaws. Not surprisingly, it didn’t go well, and hilarity ensued. Full disclosure, when my wife and I were in Seattle about 20 years ago, and my wife was considerably pregnant, (Or as George Bailey would have said in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “On the nest.”) my wife and I actually took a modern version of a rickshaw to get around one night. It was actually some young, very fit “hipster,” who attached a carriage to his bicycle. This was not an easy job considering how hilly Seattle is, and how pregnant my wife was, and how much fatter I was at the time. Either way, the rickshaw appears to be doomed to remain in the recesses of my childhood.
Apparently the practice of using rickshaws is alive and well, at least in China. They say they can be difficult to flag down, especially in some of the sketchier neighborhoods in Hunan and Shanghai, where one can be…”Shanghaied.” (Getty Images)
The use of anvils
In cartoons, anvils seemed to be used for everything, and apparently, they can fall out of the sky at a moment’s notice. Other than a blacksmith, when was the last time you happened upon an anvil? As I think about it, it’s probably better that you don’t. If cartoons are to be believed, they can raise an ugly bump on one’s head if they fall upon you.
Gas station attendants sporting a shirt and tie
I once lost a bet to my father over this one. I told him that if we go to a Texaco station, the guy who comes out to pump our gas will have a Texaco baseball hat, and he will be wearing a tie. Spoiler alert, I lost. When was the last time a gas station attendant came out to your car wearing a tie? New Jersey is about the only place where they pump your gas anyway, and none of those fine fellows ever wears a tie. I feel like “Crisco” Christie should have been on top of that one.
A “complete breakfast,” or “balanced breakfast.”
Cereal commercials littered the airwaves whenever you watched cartoons in the 1960s and ’70s. They would always tell you, no matter which cereal it was, Frosted Flakes, Trix, Lucky Charms, Captain Crunch, or literally any other on the market, that the cereal itself wasn’t really breakfast, but was actually part of a “complete,” or “balanced breakfast.” What was a complete breakfast? Apparently it was “toast, juice, and let’s say, Trix.” It doesn’t say much for a breakfast cereal when it can’t even stand alone as your breakfast, but needs to be incorporated into a bigger meal. How in the world does toast and cereal constitute a “balanced” breakfast? This combination would appear to be nothing more than carbs upon carbs. At any rate, I once asked my mother if I could have a “complete breakfast.” She looked at me as if I wanted to try on one of her bras.
Burglars who wear “racoon” masks.
Unfortunately, thanks to ISIS, and other terrorist groups, criminals now cover their whole face. However, at least according to television, all a quality criminal ever really needed was a “racoon” mask, and one of those cabbie hats to pull off a heist. Of course, it kind of gave away the fact that you were up to no good, but still, it sort of humanized the would-be “evil doer.”
I miss the days when criminals named themselves, for example, “The Hamburglar.” Of course, it wasn’t that great when they named themselves something like, “The Zodiac.” But, if they’re just stealing burgers, what’s the big deal? The only thing they’re hurting is their cholesterol.
Tough guys don’t stand on the corner flipping a quarter
We’ve all seen “young toughs” standing on a corner, and if we’re wise, we typically walk the other way. (“Wise” is “Hoffmanese” for coward.) However, you never see a tough guy standing in an alley or on a corner, flipping a quarter saying, “Hey Mack, come here.” (Nobody calls you “Mack” anymore either. It was probably an Irish slur that started out as “Mick.”) Quarter flipping has probably been lost like everything else in the world to the iPhone. Anything that distracts you from your phone eventually gets kicked to the curb, including idle time spent flipping a coin in the air as you seek to court trouble.
Dads who keep their shirt and tie on when they come home from work, and women who clean the house in heels and pearls
My father would have his tie and his jacket off before he came through the door, especially if it was hot. I once asked him why he doesn’t keep his tie on the way the “Beaver’s” dad did. He said that the “Beaver’s” dad was a schmuck. My mother didn’t quite clean in pearls and heels either. Her style was “house-dress,” and slippers, which actually makes more sense. I’ve tried to convince my wife to do housework in her heels, but so far that argument has fallen on deaf ears. Then again, nobody wants their kid’s “Eddie Haskell-like” friend to say, “Gee Wally, your Mom is a piece of ass.”
Yes, the more I think about it, the less I want to think of some modern-day Eddie Haskell posting his inappropriate thoughts regarding my wife on his Instagram account. (You Tube)
Nobody blows up dams
While sometimes you’ll read about a dam breaking, nobody ever uses this threat to blackmail a city anymore. “We’re going to blow the dam if you don’t give us what we want,” has been replaced by, “We’re going to hack into your Facebook account and convince people that you are lost in Europe and need money.” It’s not the same.
Very few people wear an eye patch or suffer from severe amnesia
I knew a lot of people, particularly in college who used to watch soap operas. I didn’t really pay much attention on account of my studies, but it did appear to me that whenever I did glance upon the screen, every other person was either sporting an eye patch, or was suffering from retrograde amnesia, the kind where you forget everything before the event that caused the amnesia, which is actually quite rare. Interestingly, if you suffered from retrograde amnesia, and you had an eye-patch, you wouldn’t remember why you were wearing one.
That’s a hot look. Television definitely got this one right. This looks so much better than a glass eye. Women would swoon over this look. (Getty Images)
The television of the 1950s and ’60s presented an ideal of what American life was, when in reality, it never truly existed. So many of us were raised to believe that certain aspects of our lives were simply a given. We knew who the good guys and bad guys were, we knew the roles that people in our society were supposed to fill, and what they looked like, and how they were supposed to conduct themselves. The problem is, that world was nothing more than make-believe.
Today, television and the movies, and even to some extent cartoons, present a much more complex version of our culture, and we find ourselves engrossed in the lives of the so-called “anti-hero,” such as Tony Soprano or Walter White. They turn society on its edge, and we’re not sure who to root for anymore, or even who we can trust and depend on. Perhaps if the bad guys would identify themselves with burglar masks and eye-patches, it would save all of us a lot more time, and allow us to get back to learning about our culture from watching quality programs such as Leave it to Beaver, and The Odd Couple. Then I could tell you about La Traviata, by Verdi. (Whoever she was?)